Idiocy: and its treatment by the physiological method

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Idiocy: and its treatment by the physiol

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IDIOCY:

ITS TREATMENT

PHYSIOLOGICAL METHOD.

EDWAED SEGUIN, m.d.

NEW YORK:

WILLIAM WOOD & CO., 61 WALKEE STREET.

1866.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by

WILLIAM WOOD & CO.,

In tlie Glerk^s 0£S.ce of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern

District of New York."

THK NEW TOBK PEINTINO OOMPANY,

81, 88, <md 85 Cml/re Street.

CONTENTS.

FAGIt

Preface ■ , vii

Bibliography ix

Introduction 9

1st. Origin of the Methodical Treatment of Idiots

2d. History of the Physiological Method of Education 16

PART I— IDIOCY.

Definition 39

Cause 40

Circumstances in which it is produced 41

Endemic Idiocy 43

Idiocy, simple, of Central or Peripheral Origin 46

Pathology i1

Appearance in Infancy 53

Motor Symptoms 61

Sensorial Symptoms 59

Deficiencies of Speech and Intellect 62

Moral Sense 64

Comparison of Idiots with their congeners 66

The protection they need 71

The Anthropological Discoveries made and expected from the study of

Idiocy T5

PART II.— PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION.

Method 81

Prevention of Idiocy 84

Treatment in Infancy •. 87

General Precepts 8^

"Where Education begins 91

System defined 97

Training of Movement 98

,iv CONTENTS.

PA.GE

Two ImmobUities ' • ^^^

Locomotion ^^^

Prehension H**

Training of tiie Hand J-H

Correction of Special Anomalies 118

A few Apparatuses of Special Gymnastics 118

Imitation, Personal and Objective 126

Education of the Senses 133

Teaching the Speech 153

Teaching the Elementary Notions 165

Teaching Drawmg, "Writing, and Reading - 171

Passive and Active, Individual and Group Teaching 182

Reading matter 185

Object-lessons 187

Qualification, Actions, Relations, Numbers 186

Memory and Imagination 192

Resume of the Method , 198

PART III.— MORAL TREATMENT.

History 213

Definition 214

Analysis 216

Authority and its Modes of Expression 219

Command, Immediate, Mediate, Contingent, etc 227

Moralization of Eood, Labor, etc 236

Pleasures, Pains, and Affection 341

Socializing Idiots 344

Foundation of the Moral Treatment '. 245

PART IV.— INSTITUTION.

Name 249

Buildings and Internal Arrangements. 252

Out-door Resorts 263

Intellectual Institution 265

Selection of the Pupils ' 266

Their Number and Grouping 368

Officers, Attendants, Matrons 272

Teachers, Gymnasts, etc - 277

Superintendent 280

What Society expects in return for the Foundation of the Institution

for Idiotic Children 291

CONTENTS.

PART v.— APPENDIX.

OBSERVATIONS. PAGE

I. to XI. — Eleven oases referred to for supposed causes of Idiocy. . . 295

XII. — Emma, Typical Idiocy i S02

Xin. — Z., Profound Idiocy, without Complication 306

XIV. — T., Profound Idiocy, without Complication 307

XT. — James, Profound Idiocy, without Complication. — Dr.

Kerlin 308

XVI.— R., Profound Idiocy, without Complication 312

XVII. — Armand, Profound Idiocy, Cranium quite Normal. — Trans-
lation 315

XVIII.— R., Profound Idiocy, with Hydrocephaly 318

XIX. — H. and Bro., Profound Idiocy, with Hydrocephaly 320

XX. — Philippe, Profound Idiocy, with Hydrocephaly and Epi-
lepsy. — Translation 321

XXI. — ^Leopold, Profound Idiocy, with Hydrocephaly and Chorea.

— Translation 329

XXII. — Maria T., Profound Idiocy, with extreme Hydrocephaly. . 339
XXIII. — ^Aztecs, Profound Idiocy, with Microcephaly, no Complica-
tion.— i)r. i)afto» 341

XXrV. — Charles, Profound Idiocy, with Epilepsy. — Translation. . . 343
XXV. — Cecfle, Profound Idiocy, with Cu:cular Microcephaly. — ■

TrOMslation 345

XXVI. — Pikre, Profound Idiocy, with Antero-lateral Microcephaly.

Translation 353

XXVH. — Pauline, Profound Idiocy, with Posterior Microcephaly. —

Translation 361

XXVni. — Julien, Profound Idiocy, with Cretinous Diathesis. —

Translation 511

XXIX.— S., Profound Idiocy, with Cretinism 376

XXX.— D. and G., Profound Idiocy, with Cretinism 379

XXXI. — M. A., Profound Idiocy, with Purfuraoeous Diathesis. . .-. 381

XXXn.— T., Profound Idiocy, with Epilepsy 383 '

XXXHI.- B. C, and M. C, Idiocy, with Chorea 383

XXXIV.— W. Gr., Idiocy, with Automatism 387

XXXV. — "W"., Idipcy, with Automatism 387

XXXVI.— C, Idiocy, with Automatism 388

XXXVn. — ^Nattie and WiUie, Idiocy, with general Paralysis and

Contracture 389

XXXVIII.— 0., Idiocy, Complicated with Hemiplegia 392

XXXIX. — T., Idiocy, Complicated with Paraplegia.— Z». S. B. Wilbur 393

XL. — M. Idiocy, with Paralysis of the Organs of Speech only. . 396

VI CONTENTS.

OBSERVATIONS. PAOB

X.LI — F., Idiocy, witli movements beginniiig under the control

of the will, and finishing in spasm 398

XXn.— T. and A., Idiocy, with Deafness 400

XLIII.— BUnd Tom, Idiocy, with Csecity 404

XLIT. — Kaspar Hausse, Idiocy, of external origin 40'?

XLT. — v., Idiocy, with Incipient Insanity 410

XLVL — C, Idiocy, with tendency to Insanity ' 411

XLTII. — Emma N., Superficial Idiocy, without Complication. —

Translation 413

XLVm. — Robert, Superficial Idiocy, with fine Cranium. — Transla-
tion 422

XLIX. — S., Superficial Idiocy, and early self-abuse 426

L. — Sh., Imbecility, and later self-abuse 427

LI. — Louis, ImbeciUty, and later self-abuse. — Translation. . . . 42T

Ln. — Paul, Backward Child. — Translation 433

Lin. — X., Children whose Primary type was not ascertained. —

Earlswood 440

LIV. — X., Primary type not ascertained. — Earlswood 443

LT. — Beckie, Primary type not ascertained. — Dr. Kerlin 445

LVI. — X., Primary type not ascertained 453

LVn. — Piper and Scott, Primary type not ascertained 465

PREFACE.

Twenty years have passed away since the publication of any
treatise on the treatment of idiots.* This period has been
appropriately filled by the practical labor of founding schools
and endowing public institutions for these children. The
preceding period had been occupied by the framing of the
physiological method of education ; and the next period will
be devoted to new studies on the subject.

This present time seems therefore particularly favorable for
the writing of a book embodying — 1st. Our present know-
ledge on idiocy ; 2d. The method of treating idiots ; 3d. The
practice of the same ; and 4th. An outline of the direction
to be given to the scientific efforts of the Mends of idiots,
and of the apostles of universal education.

Deprived of language by voluntary change of nationality,
and engaged in the fulfilment of private duties, we did not
take our share in the treatment of idiots in this Republic ; but
we were never distant from the subject, and we reentered
it as soon as circumstances permitted.
' We accepted the hospitalities of the New York Institution

* While these pages are passing through the press we are apprised of the
publication of the treatises of Drs. Down, Duncan, and Millard, to which we
are happy to give a place in our bibliographic list. *

vm PEEFACE.

as one of our means of study. The superintendents of all
the schools for idiots, and one of their trustees, tendered
their assistance in the shape of liberal subscriptions ; William
Wood undertook the publishing, though knowing that it
could not be of pecuniary advantage ; and Dr. E. C. Seguin
revised the work with the double object in view of saving
its language from our Gallicisms and from commonplace cor-
rections : cheerless task for any one but for a tender and
dutiful son, in doing which, he has fathered the last-bom of
the mind of his father. Unhappily, towards the close of
the work, it became necessary, on account of his health, to
leave for Europe, so that the defects left therein will be
ours.

New Tobk, May, 1866.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. Note Historique sur le Sauvage de L'Aveyron. Prof. Bonaterre.

Paris: 1799.

2. Discussions on the same subject between Pinel and'Itard, bef or

the French Academy of Sciences. See Memoires : 1799.

3. De L'Bducation d'un Homme Sauvage. Itard. Paris: 1801.

4. Rapport sur le Sauvage de L'Aveyron. Itard. Paris : 1807.

5. Observations pour servir S, I'histoire de I'ldiotie. Dans Les

Maladies Mentales, EsquiroL Paris : 1828.

6. Eesum€ de ce que nous avons fait pendant quatorze mois. Esgui-

rol et SegTiin. Paris : 1839.

7. Conseils & M. 0., sur L'Bducation de son enfant idiot. B. Seguin

Paris: 1839.

8. Theorie et Pratique de L'Education des Idiots (Legons aux jeunes

idiots de L'Hospice des Incurables), premiere partie. B
Seguin: 1841.

9. Ditto. Seconde partie. Paris : 1842.

10. Hygilne et Education (extrait des Annales d'Hygiene et de

Medeoine l%ale). E. Seguin. Paris : 1843.
11.' De D'Idiotie chez les Bnfanta. Felix Voisin. Paris : 1843.

12. Essai sur L'Idiotie. Belhfcmme. Paris : 1843.

13. Goitre and Cretinism. Dr. Niepce. Paris : 1845.

14. Images G-radu^es &, I'usage des Enfants Arrierfe et Idiots. E

Seguin. Paris: 1846.

15. Traitement Moral. Hygiene et Education des Idiots, etc. B.

Seguin. Paris: 1846.*

16. Remarks, Theoretical and Practical, on the Education of Idiots

and OhUdren of weak intellect. W. R. Scott, Ph. D. Lon-
don: 1847.

X BIBLIOGRAPHy.

17. J. E. Pereire, Analyse Eaisonnge de sa M€thode. E. Seguin.

Paris: 1847.

18. Idiocy, by Forbes "Winslow. London : 1848.

19. Cretinism and its Treatment. Pr. L. Gnggenbuhl. Berne : 1848.
20." Causes and Prevention of Idiocy. Br. S. G. Howe. Boston,

Mass.: 1848.

21. Report of the Commission created by the King of Sardinia for

the Study of Cretinism. Turin : 1850.

22. Researches on Idiocy and Cretinism in Norway. Dr. Stalst.

Christiania: 1851.

23. Statistic Studies on Idiocy. Hubertz. Copenhagen : 1851.

24. Die'Heilung und Verhiitung des Cretinismus und Ihre Neuesten

Portsohritte. Dr. J. Q-uggenhuhl. Berif un St. G-allen : 1835.

25. Teaching the Idiot. Rev. Edwin Sidney, A.M. London:

1854,

26. On the possibility of Educating Idiot Children, etc. Dr. Brchricht.

Copenhagen : 1854.

27. Cretinism and Idiocy. Dr. Blackie. Edinburgh : 1855.

28. Idiot Training. Rev. Edwin Sidney. London : 1855.

29. Idiots and the Efforts for their Improvement. Dr. L. P. Brookett.
• Hartford, Conn. : 1856.

30. Report of Commissioners on Idiocy in Connecticut. Dorchester,

Knight & Brookett : 1856.

31. Essay on Idiots' Instruction. Dr. Preedman Kern. Gohlis :

1857.

32. Handbook on Idiocy. James Abbot. London : 1857.

83. Die gegenwartige Lage der Cretinen, Blodflnnigen und Idioten
in den Christhchen Landern. Juhus DesseUioff. Bonn-
1857.

34. The Mind Fnveiled. Dr. J. N. Kerhn. Phila. : 1858.

35. Two Visits to Earlswood Asylum for Idiots. Rev. Edwin Sidney,

A,M. London : 1859, 1861. *

36. The Method of Drill, the Gymnastic Exercises, and the Manner

of Teaching Speaking used.at Essex Hall, Colchester, for Idiots,
Simpletons, and Feeble-minded Children. E. Martin Duncan,
M.B. (Lond.). London : 1861.

37. Some Suggestions on the Principles and Methods of Elementary

Instruction. Dr. H. B. Wilbur, Superintendent of the New
York State Asylum for Idiots. Albany, N. Y. : 1862.

38. Essay on Idiocy. Dr. Coldstream. Edinburgh : 1862.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. XI

39. The Idiot and Ms Helpers. W. Millard, Essex HalL Colchester :

1864.

40. Lunacy and Law, together with Hints on the Treatment of Idiots.

F. E. D. Byrne, L.R.O.P., and M.E.C.S. London: 1864.

41. A P^te-day at Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, June, 1864. Rev.

Edwin Sidney. London : 1864.

42. The Training of Idiotic and Feeble-minded Children. Cheyne

Brady, Esq., M.R.I.H. Dublin : 1864.

43. Idiocy, its Diagnosis and Treatment by the Physiological Method,

etc. E. SeguiQ. Albany, N. T. : 1864.

44. Idiot Asylums. In Edinburgh Review, No. CCXLIX. July:

1865.

45. A Treatise on Idiocy and its Cognate Affections. J. Langdon H.

Down, M.D., Lond., Physician to the Asylum for Idiots. (In
press). London.

46. A Manual for the Classification, Training, and Education of the

Feeble-minded, Imbecile, and Idiotic. By P. Martia Duncan,
M.B., Lond., P.G-.S., P.A.S.L., Honorary Consulting Surgeon
to the Eastern Counties Asylum for Idiots and Imbeciles ; and
William Millard, Superintendent of the Eastern Counties
Asylum for Idiots and Imbeciles.

There have been, no doubt, many other valuable publications on the
subject ; for instance, the Essays of Dr. J. ConoUy and Dr. Twining,
but we have not been able to obtain them. To these must be added
the Annual and other Reports of the various Institutions for Idiots
in this country and abroad.

IDIOCY, AND ITS TREATMENT.

INTKODUCTION.

Idiots' have been educated in all times by the devotion of
kind-hearted and intelligent persons, and with the best means
they could borrow from ordinary schools ; until the progress
of physiology opened the possibility of the adaptation of its
principles to the general training of children. But other
elements were mature. The right of all to education was
acknowledged, if not yet fulfilled with the imperfect means
at command ; the deaf and the blind were already instructed
by special methods; and several children, marked by
nature, accident, or crime, with the characters of idiocy,
had been subjected to physiological and psychological
experiments. Can idiots be educated, treated, improved,
cured ? To put the question was to solve it.

There is a sort of mysterious upheaval of mankind in
the way new things spring up, which commands our awe.
At a given hour, anything wanted by the race makes its
appearance simultaneously from so many quarters, that the
title of a single individual to discovery is always contested,
and seems clearly to belong to God manifested through
man. The origin of the methodical, treatment of idiots,

10 ■ IDIOCY.

though apparently of secondary importance, is nevertheless
one of these necessary events, coming when needed for the
co-ordination of progress. Nothing can give a better
instance of the simultaneity of feeling this new idea
encountered, than the readiness with which all nations
encouraged the formation of schools for idiots, and the
unconcerted unanimity of language elicited at the founda-
tion of these establishments by minds separated otherwise
by vast intellectual distances.

It was our fortune to be a guest at one of these solem-
nities, where individuals certainly spoke more the language
of mankind than their own ; manifesting clearly wherefrom
the spirit of the occasion came. It was at the ceremony of
the laying of the corner-stone of the first school built
expressly for idiots in this country, at Syracuse, New York,
September 8th, 1854.

The Eev. Samuel J. May began in these terms : " Twenty-
five years ago, or more, in the early days of my ministry,
I encountered, as every man who thinks at all must sooner
or later encounter, the great problem of the existence of
evil — the question, how the Good God, the Heavenly
Father, could permit his children of earth to be so tempted,
tried, and afflicted as they are. I was unable to avoid this
perplexing subject: so I met it as best I could, in full faith
that the wisdom and goodness of God will be justified in all
his works, and in all his ways, whenever they shall be fully
understood.

"I endeavored to lead my audience to see what, in
almost every direction, was very apparent to myself, that
evil is a means to some higher good ; never an end ; never

INTRODUCTION. 11

permitted for its own sake, certainly not for the sake of
vengeance.

" I was able easily to trace out the good effects of many
evils; to show how they had stimulated mankind to
exertion and contrivance, physical and mental ; to tell of
the discoveries, inventions, and improvements that were the
consequences. In particular, I dwelt upon the sad priva-
tions those individuals are subjected to who were born deaf
or blind. The institution of the Asylum for the Deaf and
Dumb, at Hartford, was then of recent date, and a school
■for the blind was said to have been opened in Paris.
These institutions were then of great interest to the philan-
thropist; and I found no difficulty in showing that the
philosophy of mind, and the science and art of education in
general, had been much improved by the earnest and
successful endeavors which benevolent persons had made
to open communications with the minds and hearts of
persons deprived of one or more of the most important
senses.

" But there was idiocy — idiocy so appalling in its appear-
ance, so hopeless in its nature ; what could be the use of
such an evil? It were not enough to point to it as a
consequence of the violation of some of the essential laws
of generation. If that were all, its end would be punishment.
I ventured, therefore, to declare with an emphasis enhanced
somewhat, perhapai by a lurking distrust of the prediction,
that the time would come when access would be found to
the idiotic brain ; the light of intelligence admitted into
its dark chambers, and the whole race be benefited
by some new discovery on the nature of mind. It

12 IDIOCY.

seemed to some of my hearers, more than to myself, a
daring conjecture.

, " Two or three years afterwards I read a brief announce-
ment that in Paris they had succeeded in educating idiots.
I flew to her who would be most likely to sympathize in my
joy, shouting, ' Wife, my prophecy is fulfilled. Idiots have

been educated.' ."

When men are gathered together for a common purpose,
their object beings common, their minds become blended;
they cease to think as many; the same idea flows from all
brains. So was it at this ceremony. Dr. H. B. Wilbur,
Gov. W. Hunt, the. Hons. E. W. Leavenworth, C. PI.
Morgan, James H. Titus, the steadfast friends of the new
institution, spoke in the same strain. Letters from in-
voluntary absentees. Gov. J. 0. Spencer, Simeon Draper,
Wm. H.Seward, breathed the same spirit. Dr. S. G. Howe's
happy words concluded : " The institution whose founda-
tion-stone is to be laid, will be like a last link in a chain —
it "will complete the circle of the State's charities, which will
then embraca every class whose infirmities call for public
aid. , It has i long included the deaf mutes, the blind and
the insane, and it is now to include the idiots^a class
far, far more deplorably afflicted than either of the
others.

"The ceremony will be fleeting , and soon forgotten;
the building itself will in time decay, but the institu-
tion will last' while the State lasts ; for when the people
once recognize the claim of any class of unfortunates,
there is no fear .of their ever repudiating the debt of
charity. The bonds lie deep in the heart of humanity

INTRODUCTION. 13

as the foundation-stone you now lay lies deep in the
bosom of the earth."

Even we, though a stranger, unable to ajDpreciate the
elevated tone of these aspirations, were rendered capable of
expressing cognate feelings by the contagious influenceof the
engrossing topic. We said : " God has scattered among us,
rare as the possessors of talent or genius, the idiot, the
blind, the deaf mute, in order to bind the talented to the
incapable, the rich to-the needy, all men to each other, by
a tie of indissoluble solidarity. The old bonds are dissolv-
ing; man is already unwilling to contribute money or
palaces for the support of indolent classes ; but he is every
day more ready* to build palaces and give annuities for
the indigent or infirm, the chosen friends of Jesus Christ.
To see that stone, token of a new alliance between
humanity and a class hitherto neglected, is the greatest
joy of my life; for I, too, have labored for the poor
idiot. "

These were a few of the transient expressions of the
lasting feeling evinced at that memorable meeting. Once
awatened in our bosoms, these feelings live for ever, and
our actions are only their" translation in deeds and inonu-
ments.

To render these feelings into facts,' one nation after
another has acknowledged its duty towards "the idiot. In
Switzerland, Dr. J. Guggenbiihl began to study Cretinism
in 1839, and opened his school on the Abendberg in 1842,
simultaneously with that of M. Saegert, at Berlin ; both, it
.is said, without having any knowledge of our practice, or
of our four successive pamphlets on the treatment and

14 IDIOCY.

education of idiots, already published and exhausted. In
1846, Dr. Kern established a school at Leipsig ; and the
writings of Drs. A. Eeed, Twining, and J. Conolly, gave
birth ■ to the first English institution at Bath. In 1848,
Sir S. M. Peto devoted his own mansion, Essex Hall,
Colchester, to the same destination. Scotland opened her
first institution in 1852 ; and in June, 1853, was laid by
Prince Albert, the corner-stone of the school of Earlswood,
Surrey. Nearly all the nations of Europe followed these
examples.

As early as 1842-3, Horace Mann and George Sumner
had become familiar with our personal labors at BicStre,
on which they wrote approvingly, sending over the seeds
which soon rose from American soil. Dr. S. B. Wood-
ward, Dr. Backus, of Eochester, New York, Judge Bying-
ton, Dr. S. Gr. Howe, Dr. E. Jarvis, and Dr. H. B. Wilbur,
all of Massachusetts, were the first to move the public
opinion or the Legislatures of their respective States.
Indeed, Dr. Backus went so far as to report a bill to the
Senate, at Albany, on the 13th of January, 1846, for the
purchase of a site, and the erection of suitable buildings, for
an , asylum for idiots. This bill passed the Senate, and was
at first concurred in by the Assembly, but subsequently
rejected on political grounds. In 184.7,' it met with a
similar fate. Massachusetts, a few days behind New York
at the start, succeeded sooner. The 22d of January, 1846,
the Hon. Mr. Byington offered a resolution to the Legisla-
ture, for the appointment of a commission to investigate
the condition of idiots in that State. The resolution
passed the House; Dr. S. G. Howe, Judge Byington, and

INTRODUCTION. 15

G. Kimball, were appointed Commissioners. Their report
was favorable to the formation of an experimental school
for idiots, which was opened in October of the same year,
and remains in its permanent organization under the- able
supervision of Dr. Howe. '

But private enterprise moves faster than political bodies.
Dr. H. B. Wilbur had already opened in July, at Barre,
Massachusetts, the private institution which he left only at
the call of the State of New York, and which Dr. George
Brown has since so successfully conducted.

In 1851, the State of New York established an experi-
mental" school at Albany, for which the services- of Dr.
Wilbur were secured. The result of this experiment,
purposely carried on under the eyes of the Legislature, was
so satisfactory that a permanent State institution was
erected in 1854.

In 1852, a private school had been founded in German-
town by Mr. J. B. Eichards, which soon became the
"Pennsylvania Training School for Idiots," at Media.
The States of Connecticut and Ohio opened their institu-
tions, respectively, in 1855 and 1857 ; Kentucky in 1860 ;
and Illinois in 1865. Thus the United States has eight of
these schools, in which nearly one thousand children are
constantly iu training. And this is only a beginning.
All the Western and Southern States will soon possess
similar establishments ; and the city of New York, with its
immense suburbs, cannot much longer send its idiots to
the northern climate of Syracuse, depriving them 'of the
warmth of the sea-shore, and of the visits of their friends.
But more. New York city must have its institution for

16 IDIOCY.

idiots, because it contains the mature talents and growing
capacities in all the branches of human inquiry, whose
concourse must be insured to perfect the method of treat-
meht of these children, and to deduce therefrom the import-
ant discov^es justly expected in anthropology.

If we turn our attention from these monuments of phi-
lanthropy to the filiation of the abstract idea realized by
their erection, we see a spectacle more imposing still.
That idea of finding modes of training, natural and yet
powerful enough to bring into physiological activitj'
impaired functions, and even atrophied organisms, did
not come directly into the human mind. Like neSrly all
discoveries, it came by side-views of the problem, till a
man looking at it in full face solved it by a mighty effort.

Thus the institutions for deaf mutes of Paris, Groningen,
Bordeaux, Hartford (Conn.), etc., have been cumbered from
their beginning with applications for the admission of
idiots, and have kept the record of the improvement of
some of them, educated side by side with the deaf, by the
ordinary process of teaching; trials dear to charity, like
those of private individuals, but deprived of philosophical
import. On the other hand, how often children, rendered
artificially idiotic or imbecile by ill-treatment and isolation
in many formSj have excited the pity of their age, and
thereby were made recipients of the care of the most philo-
sophical minds. Everybody will discriminate between
these two antecedents; the former doing good to individu-
als, the latter preparing the way for the discovery.

The record of these latter children is scant as well as im-
perfect, extending to a period in which scientific observa-

INTRODUCTION. 17

tion was nearly unknow^n. "We owe to the great Linnagus
a' list of ten of these' phenomena which he, curiously enough,
considered as forming a variety in the genus Homo. We
are indebted to Bon^terre, Professor of Natural' History in
the Central School of the Department of the Aveyron,
France, for his quotation of it, for curious I'esearohes upbn
each one of these ten savages, and for his own' notice of
the eleventh, "the Savage of the Aveyron." We tran-
scribe from our own copy of that extremely rare pamphlet.

1st. Juvenis Lupinus Hessensis. 1544. (A young man
found in Hesse among wolves.)

2d. Juvenis Ursihus lAthuanus. 1661. (A young man
found among bears in Lithuania.)

3du Juvenis Ovinus Hibernus. Tulp. Obs. IV. (A
young man found among wild sheep in Ireland.)

4th. Juvenis Bovinus Bamhergensis. Camerar. (A young
man found among herds of oxen near Bamberg.)

5th. Juvenis Eannoverianus. 1724. (A young man
found in Hanover.)

6th. Pueri Pyrenaid. 1719. (Two boys found in the
Pyrenees.)

7th. Puella Tramisalana. 1717. (A girl found in the
Dutch Province of Over-Yssel.)

Sih. PudU Gampanica. 1731. (A girl found in Cham-
pagne and since named Mile. Leblanc.)

9th. Johannes Leodisensis. • Boerhaave. (John of Liege.)

10th. Puella Karpfmsis. 1767. (The girl of Karpfen.)

11th. Juvenis Averionensis. Anno Peipublicce' GalliccB
octai/o. (The savage of the Aveyron, in the year eighth of
the French Eepublic.)

18 IDIOCY.

It would be curious, but unprofitable, to follow the
scanty traces of method and education left in the legends
concerning the ten first cases. "Such was," says Itard,
" in those remote times the defective march of studies, the
mania of explanation, the uncertainty of hypothesis, the
exclusiveness of abstract thinking, that observation was
set at naught, and these precious facts were lost for the
natural history of man." But the rooted faith in which
Itard himself was an adept, that if a true savage — meaning
a savage, savage even to savage tribes — could be found, his
education would evidence the natural springs of the human
mind, obliterated in us by artificial culture; that faith,
which lighted before the psychologist the same Ignis FatuvLS
that the philosopher's stone raised before the alchemist,
gives a sure guarantee that none of the means those times
could afford were spared to develop the faculties long
dormant in these unfortunates, under the cover of animal,
instinct and habit. But we have to come to the eleventh
case, that of the Savage of the Aveyron, to emerge from
fiction into history ; there we begin to feel that we are on
scientific ground. The first part of his biography, written
previously to his education by the man of clear and simple
talent already named. Prof Bonaterre ; and the second and
third parts by his inimitable teacher, constitute the most
complete record of any such case.

Prof. Bonaterre represents his protigi as unused to our
food, and selecting his aliments by the smell, like the
savages of Ireland, Hanover, and Liege; lying flat on
the ground, and immersing his chin in the water to drink,
as did the girl of (Chalons in Champagne; and like her

INTRODUCTION. 19

tearing all sorts of garments and trying constantly to
escape ; walking often on all fours, like the boys of Ireland,
Hesse, and Bamberg; fighting with his teeth, like the
savages of Lithuania and Bamberg ; giving few marks of
intelligence, like the Lithuanian child ; having no articu-
late language, and even appearing devoid of tl^e natural
faculty of speech, like the savages of Ireland, Lithuania,
and Hanover ; kind, complaisant, and pleased at receiving
caresses, like the girl of Over-Yssel. The Professor also
thought that,* " a phenomenon like this would furnish to
philosophy and natural history important notions on the
original constitution of man, and on the development of his
primitive faculties ; provided that the state of imheciliiy we
have noticed in this child does not offer an obstacle to his
instruction.^^

With this remark, Bonaterre left the boy in the hands
of " that philosophical institutor, who has accomplished so
many prodigies in this class of teaching ; and it is to be
expected that the child just confided to his care, may
some time become the emulator of Massieu, Fontaine, and
Mathieu" (noted deaf mutes taught in the school of
Paris).

This institutor, Sicard, had succeeded the Abbe De
L'Epee, and Bonaterre thought him the man to perform
upon this savage the miracle dreamed of by De Condillac.
But he was mistaken; Sicard soon tired of the uncouth
being who was throwing away his clothes, and trying to

* Bonaterre; Notice Historique sur le Sauvage de I'Aveyron. Paris;
1799. P. 50.

20 IDIOCY.

escape even by the windows ; and left him to wander ne-
glected in the halfe of the school for deaf mutes. But the
child had been seen by all Paris. If the crowd of visitors
found him an object of disgust, he continued to excite
among thinkers a lively interest. Some of those who had
held converse with Franklin and Thomas Paine on the mo-
mentous questions of the closing century, were still living ;
and lay them the subject was brought before the Academy,
where it produced exciting discussions, in which two men
were prominent: Pinel, Physician-in-Chief to the Insane
at Bic^tre, who declared the child idiotic ; and Itard, Phy-
sician of the Deaf Mute Institution, who asserted that he
was simply wild, or entirely untaught. This discrepancy
of opinion is thus sumnjed up by the latter.*

" The Citizen Pinel established between several children
of Bic^tre, irrevocably struck with idiotism, and the child
object of our present study, the most rigorous analogies,
which would necessarily give for result a perfect identity
between those young idiots and the savage of the Aveyron.
That identity was leading to the conclusion that, affected
with a malady to this time looked upon as incurable, he
was not susceptible of any sort of sociability or instruction.
It was accordingly the conclusion drawn by the Citizen
Pinel ; which he, meantime, accompanied with the expression
of that philosophical doubt spread in all his writings, and to
be found in the previsions of any man who appreciates the
results of tihe science of prognosis, only as a more or less
certain calculus of probabilities.

* Itard, De rflducation d'un Homme sauvage. Paris. 1801. Pp. 14 15.

INTRODUCTION. 21

" I did not partake this unfavorable opinidb ; and, de-
spite the truthfulness of the tableau, and the closeness of
resemblance, I dared to conceive some hopes. I founded
them on the double consideration, of the caus& and the
eurahility of that apparent idiotism."

Itard, not, believing idiocy curable, contrary to the mis-
givings of Bonaterre, and to the all but convincing demon-
strations of Pinel, undertook this education. In devoting
himself to this case, his object was not to improve or cure
an idiot; it was "to solve the metaphysical problem of
determining what might be the degree of intelligence and
the nature .of the ideas in a lad, who, deprived from birth
of all education, .should have lived entirely separated from
the individuals of his kind." , Itard embodied this pro-
gramme in five propositions :

,." 1st. To endear him to social life, by making it more
congenial than the one he was now leading; and, above
all, more like that he had but recently quitted.

"2d. To awaken his nervous sensibility, by the most
energetic stimulants ; and at other times by quickening the
affections of the soul.

" 3. To extend the sphere of his ideas, by creating new
wants, and multiplying his associations with surrounding
beings.

" 4th. To lead him to the use of speech, by determining
the exercise of imitation, under the spur of necessity.

"5. To exercise, during a certain time, the simple opera-
tions of his mind upon his physical wants ; and therefrom
derive the application of the same to objects of instruction."

For more than a year Itard followed this psychological

22 IDIOCY.

programme, 'perfectly well adapted to the education of a
savage. But he seems, after this time, to have suspected
that there were other impediments besides savageness in his
pupil ; for, though he never formally acknowledged it, he
framed, about 1802, an entirely new programme, more
fitted for an idiot than for a savage, whose foundation was
physiology, and whose generality embraced :

" 1st. The development of the senses.

" 2d. The development of the intellectual faculties.

" 3d. The development of the affective functions."

This evolution of the mind of Itard, founded, no doubt,
upon a secret consciousness of his error in diagnosis, forced
him to link his labors to more scientific traditions. There-
fore we cannot very well proceed in the narration of the
history of his idea, without tracing it back to its origin.

Since Morgagni, Boerhaave, Haller, had brought phj'sio-
logy to its proper place, that is to say, ahead of all other me-
dical sciences, it had been considered and used as a reliable
element of progress in various branches of anthropology.
Among the special labors founded upon its recent discover-
ies, none had been more conspicuous than those of Jacob
Eodrigues Pereire, who taught congenital deaf mutes to
speak ; communicating to them, not only a natural voice
and a correct pronunciation, but even his accent gascon, or
peculiar southern emphasis. So says every one who fol-
lowed his admirable teachings, BufiEbn, Lecat, Bezout,
Diderot, etc. So can we say ourselves, with many living
witnesses, Charton, Carn'ot, Leroux, etc., who have seen
and heard in 1831, in the salmis of the rue. Monsigny, Mile.
Marois, the last surviving pupil of Pereire, when she came

INTRODUCTION. 23

from Orleans to visit the then unknown grandsons of her
beloved teacher. Yes, we heard, decrepit, that voice which
Buffon heard in its silvery tones of youth. Unfortunately
we were too young and ignorant to pay d'ue attention to
this wonder ; and our reminiscences of it are bare of the
particulars which could make them valuable.

In this teaching, Pereire entered into communication
with his pupils, by the use of, first, the manual alphabet
engraved in the curious Spanish book of Juan Pablo
Bonnet, " Beduction de hs Letras, y arte para ensenar a hablar
los mudos. Madrid: 1620." Second, of another syllabic
manual of forty-odd signs of his own invention. Third, the
natural resources of expression offered by pantomime. As
soon as Pereire was understood by his pupils with the help
of these temporary means of communication, he commenced
to teach them to speak the speech proper, derived from the
consciousness of the reciprocal nature of language. This
consciousness could only be given to the deaf by a physio-
logical discovery. Pereire analyzed the speech, into two
elements : the sound, and the vibration which produces it ;
the first which the ear alone can appreciate, the second that
any flesh vibrating itself may be taught to perceive. He
conceived that ordinary men hear the sound, without, most
of the time, noticing the vibrations ; but that the deaf, who
cannot hear the sound, may nevertheless be made the
recipients of vibrations. Hence, a given vibration pro-
ducing only a given sound, the deaf taught to perceive the
vibration, could not imitate it without reproducing likewise
the corresponding sound of language. It is thus that he
practically made his pupils hear through the skin, and

24 IDIOCY.

utter exactly what they so heard. By this discovery Pereire
demonstrated to the physiologists of his da;y, that all the
senses are modifications of the tact, all touch of some
sort.

Buffon, taken by surprise at the sight of the deaf-speak-
ing pupils of Pereire, and though knowing only a part of
their mode of education, confesses to the novelty of the
discovery in these terms: " Nothing could show more
conclusively how much the senses are alike at the bottom,
and to what point they may supply one another." — Natural
HisMry of Man. \st volume, first edition.

The deaf mutes did not gain by this discovery, because
their succeeding teachers could not even understand what
it meant.

But important conclusions resulted from these experi-
ments.

1st. That the senses, and each one in particular, can be
submitted to physiological training by which their primor-
dial capability may be indefinitely intellectualized.

2d. That one sense may be substituted for another as
a means of comprehension and of intellectual culture.

8d. That the physiological exercise of a sense corro-
borates the action, as well as verifies the acquisitions of
another.

4th. That our most abstract ideas are comparisons and
generalizations by the mind of what we have perceived
through our senses.

5th. That educating the modes of perception is to prepare
pabulum for the mind proper.

6th. That sensations are intellectual functions performed

INTRODUCTION. ^ 25

through external apparatus as much as reasoning, imagina-
tion, etc., through more internal organs.

When Pereire was implicitly solving all these problems
by his demonstration on the deaf mutes of the identity of
all our senses, he was in communication with Jean Jacques
Rousseau, both living near each other in the Bue de la
Platriire, which has since received the name of one of
them. Pereire had his school of ten to fifteen deaf mutes
there, and Rousseau was in the habit of coming in, in a
friendly, neighborly manner. It would be presumptuous to
suppose what transpired between these two men, so much
unlike their cotemporaries. Rousseau so shy, but so ex-
tremely eccentric ; Pereire so modest, but so intensely indivi-
dual ; both sincere monotheists in an atmosphere of incredu-
lity; both intent upon their favorite subject, civilization in
its surest form, education. But, in looking closely at their
literary relics, we may more easily find ideas of Pereire in
the " Discours sur I'lnigaliti des Conditions" than ideas of
Jean Jacques in the memoirs on the restoration of the
speech to congenital deaf mutes, inserted in the collec-
tion of the French Academy. However, no one can doubt
the reciprocal influence two such master spirits must have
exercised upon each other. The book of Umih is full of
experiments upon physiological teaching which could only
have originated in the school for deaf mutes ; so identical
are the theories of the book with the practice of Pereire.
Nevertheless, the first school where deaf mutes were taugtt
to speak naturally, and the first treatise on education
whose object was to create, not a subject, but a man, stand
side by side as the two indices on the road of modern

26 IDIOCY.

education. In saying this we do not pretend to ignore
other subsequent labors, such as the writings of Jean Paul
Richter, and the school of Pestalozzi, whose originality is
all from the Mnik, and whose defects are mostly inherent.

When the first philosophical programme of Itard had
partly succeeded against what was savage in his pupil, he
conceived after Pereire and Eousseau, the physiological
terms of his second one, which adapted themselves exactly
to the functional incapacities of the idiocy of his pupil, so
admirably described by Pinel; so that, nolens volens, the
great teacher began to treat the idiot in the savage.

With what success ? Dacier, the Perpetual Secretary of
the French Academy, summing up the opinion of that
scientific body on this subject, wrote ofiicially in 1806 as
follows : " This class of the Academy acknowledges that it
was impossible for the institutor to put in his lessons,
exercises, and experiments more intelligence, sagacity,
patience, courage; and that if he has not obtained a greater
success, it must be attributed, not to any lack of zeal or
talent, but to the imperfection of the organs of the subject
upon which he worked. The Academy, moreover, can-
not see without astonishment how he could succeed as far
as he did ; and thinks that to be just towards M. Itard, and
to appreciate the real worth of his labors, the pupil ought
to be compared only with himself; we should remember
what he was when placed in the hands of this physician,
see what he is now ; and more, consider the distance
separating his starting-point from that which he has
reached ; and by how many new and ingenious modes of
teaching this lapse has been filled. The pamphlet of M.

INTRODUCTION. 27

Itard contains also the exposition of a series of extremely
singular and interesting phenomena of fine and judicious
observations ; and presents a combination of highly instruc-
tive processes, capable of furnishing science with new data,
the knowledge of which can but be extremely useful to
all persons engaged in the teaching of youth." It is
curious to see that Itard himself did not measure as justly
as Dacier the compass of his physiological teaching, when
he speaks thus on the same subject: "Leaving out the
end aimed at in my self-imposed task, the education of the
Savage of the Aveyron ; considering this undertaking from
a more general point of view, you cannot fail to see with
some satisfaction, in the various experiments I instituted,
in the numerous observations I made, a collection of facts
capable of enlightening the history of medical philosophy,
the study of uncivilized man, and the direction of certain
kinds of private education."*

In the practice of physiological teaching Itard never
went farther. He had undertaken the education of the
Savage of the Aveyron, because he did not believe him
idiotic ; whilst Pinel warned him not to undertake it, on
the ground of a contrary diagnosis : both thus giving their
sanction to the doctrine of letting idiocy alone. When he
first suspected that his savage might also be an idiot, his
belief in the incurability of idiocy made him exclaim :
" Unfortunate ! Since my pains are lost and my efforts
fruitless, take yourself back to your forests and primitive
tastes ; or if your new wants make you dependent on society,
suffer the penalty of being useless, and go to Bic^tre, there

• Itard ; Rapport, ete. 1807. P. 12.

28 IDIOCY.

to die in wretchedness."* He, of himself, never educated
any other idiot, but directed " certain kinds of private edu-
cation," which applied to a large range of cases, from idiotic
to morally depraved ; our common pupil was from among
the former. Confined to these accidental and isolated
instances, Itard never so much as hinted at the possibility
of systematizing his views for the treatment of idiots at
large, nor at organizing schools for the same purpose.

But he was the first to educate an idiot with a philoso-
phical object and by physiological means. If he did not
conceive a philosophical method of education, he expressed
and realized the first views on this subject ; generalizing on
his savage idiot the sensorial experiments made by Pereire
on the touch of deaf mutes ; and specializing on the same
forlorn pupil the theories enunciated by Eousseau for the
education of mankind. In this double process consists the
completeness of his labors ; alternately analyzing and
synthesizing, he followed his special aims without deviating
from his general object. Others may have continued his
task, even enlarged, completed, and systematized it, but we
do not know of any one who would not gladly exchange
all subsequent titles for the authorship of the two pam-
phlets on the " Savage of the Aveyron." Even at present,
we quit with regret his few unrivalled pages, to follow the
evolution of his idea through other minds, after his bodily
death.

The idea of Itard came to its most comprehensive reali-

• Itard. De L'Education d'un Homme Sauvago. 1801. Pp. 45, 46.

INTRODUCTION, 29

zation under trying circumstances. The philosophical
school to which he belonged in 1800, had gone to rest
before him. In 1830-40 three schools were disputing the
ruling of this century. The one called of Divine Sights,
because it attributed a divine origin to the oppression of
the many by the few, according to certain laws of heredity
and priesthood ; nothing between the parties but obedience
and authority ; education a limited privilege. The Eclectic
school, whose highest aim was "classification according to
capacity, and remuneration according to production ;" per-
petuation of classes if not of castes ; education, like the rest,
to the presumed capable ; in fact, a liberal school classifying
from the embryo, unequalizing from the foetus. The Chris-
tian school (St. Simonism), striving for a social application of
the principles of the gospel ; for the most rapid elevation of
the lowest and poorest by all means and institutions ; mostly
by free education. The idea of Itard being congenial only
to this last school, was nursed in it : in it experienced its
natural growth and transformation ; becoming from indivi-
dual, social ; from proportionate to the relief of special
cases, commensurate with the wants of many idiots; and
from adapted to this class of sufferers, competent to do the
training of mankind. It is an undeniable fact that that
school, and nobody out of it, has produced, among many
works of eminence, the only didactic treatises on idiocy, and
the last of these closed in the following words :

" If it were possible that in endeavoring to solve the
simple question of the education of idiots, we had found
terms precise enough, that it were only necessary to gene-
ralize them to obtain a formula applicable to universal edu-

30 IDIOCY.

cation; then, not only would we in our humble sphere have
rendered some little service, but we would besides have
prepared the elements for a method of physiological edu-
cation for mankind. Nothing would remain but to write
it."

These lines stand, an unheeded appeal to write a work
on physiological education. Teachers have plucked here
and there some fragments of the training of idiots, as object
lessons, imitation exercises, parcels of sensorial gymnastics,
etc. Herbert Spencer has insisted upon a large application
of the same to ordinary schools and children ; but no ex
professo book has been written ; so that the last ,page of the
treatise of 1846 may appropriately be the first one of that
of 1866. This apparent dead-look in the march of the idea
finds its explanation in the fact that the school which deve-
loped the idea of physiological training was yanquished.
"When the power of the method was demonstrated by its
success in the treatment of idiots, and when the sanction
given it by the French Institute seemed to point to its early
application to popular teaching, it became evident that cir-
cumstances were unfavorable. For it is not enough for an
idea to be ripe in the mind of a thinker, and that it be hailed
by the advocates of progress ; the social medium in which
it falls must be prepared for it as well ; otherwise no pro-
duction ensues from their contact. But generally the ground
rejects the seeds which it cannot germinate, and they are
carried, by what seems the fancy of the storms, to a more
genial soil.

Germany, prepared by the labors of Comenius, Spiner,
Francke, and nursed with the ideas of Eousseau by Base-

INTRODUCTION. 31

dow and Pestalozzi, had spread and enforced popular edu-
catioQ from Switzerland to Denmark. England was only
second to Germany in the same movement* which here
received a particular impulse from the character of the
American people, and of the institutions of the country.
As early as 1635 and 1639, laws for the formation of free
schools had been enacted in the colonies of Hew England.
Later, when the fathers of this Eepublic wished to perpetu-
ate the spirit of independence and the capacity of self-
government, they voted lands and money for the founda-
tion of schools for all children of whatever sex or color.
So that in every new township the opening of the school-
house preceded that of any other public building, even of
the post-office. The immediate results of this policy appear
in the universal elementary instruction of the natives ; in
the eagerness for learning of the pupils of both sexes ; and
in the high character of the teachers, most of them women.
With such competition from nearly all quarters, it would
be difficult to tell wherefrom will rise the next improve-
ment in education. If we believe in the signs nearest to
us, we should think that, supposing the American teachers
only equal in point of learning to their European brethren,
they have shown themselves so superior in point of under-
standing of philosophical questions, and of devotion to the
down-trodden of our race (when hundreds of them have

* More details might be given coneerning the history and development o
education in Europe, were it not that the whole matter has been ably and
succinctly .treated in the "History of Education. New York: ISfiO," to
which we refer, by a talented writer under the nom de plume of Philobib-

lius.

32 IDIOCY.

spontaneously left home and comfort, and foregone the
protection of civilization to teach freedom to freedmen),
that it is impossible to deny them the virtues necessary to
carry into our schools the means of a signal improvement
in our race ; unless we are greatly mistaken our teachers
are ready to spread civilization, not by the old process of
overculture of a few, but by the philosophical elevation of
the masses. "We do not need to tell them, headed by
Barnard, Holmes, May, Mrs. Stowe', etc., and by the
spirit of Horace Mann, in what the coming progress will
consist. Descartes pointed it out in these memorable
words, " If it be possible to perfect mankind, the means of
doing it will be found in the medical sciences." Pariset *
said, more explicitly, " The physiological method of educa-
tion is an example worthy of iipitation, of the alliance of
hygiene, medical science^ and moral philosophy." And
the curriculum proposed by Spencer comes nearer to this
object than any previous one. A deferential reference to
his work on education will allow us to dispense with dis-
cussing the matter of the teaching proper, and leave more
room for the exposition of the general principles of the
method.

According to this method education is the ensemble of
the means of developing harmoniously and effectively the
moral, intellectual, and physical capacities, as functions, in
man and mankind.

To be physiological, education must at first follow the

* Rapport de MU. Serrea, Flourens, et Pariset, i I'Academie des Sciences.
Paris: 1843.

INTRODUCTION. 33

great natural law of action and repose, wMch is life itself.
To adapt this law to the whole training, each function in
its turn is called to activity and to rest ; the activity of one
■favoring the repose of the other ; the improvement of one
reacting upon the improvement of all others ; contrast
being not only an instrument of relaxation, but of compre-
hension also.

But before entering farther into the generalities of the
training, the individuality of the children is to be secured :
for respect of individuality is the first test of the fitness of
a teacher. At first sight all children look much alike ; at
the second their countless differences appear like insur-
mountable obstacles ; but better viewed, these differences
resolve themselves into groups easily understood, and not
unmanageable. We find congenital or acquired anomalies of
function which need to be suppressed, or to be given a
better employment ; deficiencies to be supplied ; feebleness
to be strengthened ; peculiarities to be watched ; eccentri-
cities to be guarded against ; propensities needing a genial
object ; mental aptness, or organic fitness requiring specific
openings. This much, at least, and more if possible, will
secure the sanctity of true originality against the violent
sameness of that most considerable part of education, the
general training.

The general training embraces the muscular, imitative,
nervous, and reflective functions, susceptible of being called
into play at any moment. All that pertains to movement,
as locomotion and special motions; prehension, manipula-
tion, and palpation, by dint of strength, or exquisite
delicacy ; imitation and communication from mind to mind.

34 IDIOCY.

through languages, signs, and symbols ; all that is to be
treated thoroughly. Then, from imitation is derived
drawing; from drawing, writing; from writing, reading;
which implies the most extended use of the Yoice in
speaking, music, etc. The senses are trained, not only
each one to be perfect in itself; but, as to a certain extent
other organs may be made receivers of food in lieu of the
stomach and one emunctory may take the place of another,
likewise the senses must be educated, so that if the use of
any one be lost, another may feel and perceive for it. The
same provision is to be made for the use of both sides of
the body ; the left being made competent to do anything
for the right. But, instead of this, the present use of our
senses is nearly empirical. No mechanic sees well enough
at first sight all the parts of an engine ; no draughtsman
draws his pencil exactly where he means to; no painter can
create the shades he has before him ; no physician whose
tact is perfect enough for the requirements of his profession :
the imperfection of our sensorial and motive education
always betrays, instead of executing the dictates of our
will. Let our natural senses be developed as far as
possible, and we are riot near the limits of their capacity.
Then the instruments of artificial senses are to be brought
in requisition ; the handling of the compass, the prism, the
most philosophical of them, the microscope and others must
be made familiar to all children, who shall learn how to
see nature through itself, instead of through twenty-six
letters of the alphabet ; and shall cease to learn by rote, by
trust, by faith, instead of by knowing.

True knowledge comes only in this wise. When a

INTRODUCTION. 35

sense meets with a phenomenon, the mind awakened to
the reality of the latter by its elements, which mark its
analogy to and" difference from other phenomena, the mind
receives from said analogy and difference the impression
which constitutes the image to be stored, evoked,
compared, combined, etc. The character of the analogies
and differences presented to the mind by circumstances,
and mostly by education, forms our stock of ideas ; thus
the same piece of muscle looked at by the butcher-boy or
by the microsoopist awakens images entirely different, and
ideas whose associations shall differ more and more at each
new combination. The comparison of simple ideas pro-
duces compound ones : ideal creations of the mind, whose
existence is purely relative to that mind or to its congeners.
The assemblage in the same field of comparison of a great
number of ideas, primary or compound, gives rise to
general ideas, as those of order, classification, configuration,
etc. Ideas in their generality are abstract creations of the
mind only commensurate with Immensity. As examples
of generalizations may be mentioned, the progress of the
knowledge of the surface of the earth, as leading to the
generalization of its curves "into the idea of its Globular
shape: idea which sent Columbus in search of the anti-
podes; the idea of the quasi-infinite divisibility of matter
which produced the Atomic theory ; the presence of bodies
everywhere, which gives plausibility to the hypothesis of
Space ; the suffering of the toiling masses which elevated
the mind to the conception of Equality ; the general
harmony of the universe which dispelled the successive
mythologies founded upon temporary antagonism of

36 IDIOCY.

elements, and made room for the idea of the Unity of our
nature. Thus correct sensations being the ground of
correct images, images being stored as simple ideasj the
contact of which produces comparisons whose abundance
leads to generalizations ; till the mind embraces knowingly
and willingly from the simplest image to the most syn-
thetic idea.

In previous periods the total absence of general educa-
tion for the masses^ and of systematic training for the
perceptive, inductive, and deductive faculties in each indi-
vidual, made progress a spasmodic affair, quite properly
attributed to blind fate ; whereas, in the future, progress
resulting from the equal education of all women and men,
and from the direct training of all their functions, shall
appear to every mind as it really is, issuing from an intelli-
gent and understood Providence, which leads us through
a continuous series of improvements towards our religious
destiny.

At this point physiological education merges into the
moral training. This we cannot even sketch without going
beyond the object of this introduction, which was two-fold.

1st. To trace the origin of the methodical treatment of
idiots and their congeners.

2d. To present the philosophical history of the idea of
training the functions, and all the faculties as functions
(instead of only instructing children) ; from its germination
to its maturation in the school for idiots, and to its actual
fitness for the training of all children.

PART I-IDIOCY.

Part I.

IDIOCY.

Synonyms. — Named by Savage, Amentia; by Segar,
ImheciUitas ingenii; lay Vogel, Fatuitas ingenii; by
Linnseus, Morosis; by Cullen and Foder^, Demence innee;
by Willis, Stupiditas ; by Pinel, Idiotism; by some English
writers, Idiotcy ; by Bsquirol and the majority of Encyclo-
paedias and Dictionaries, Idiocy.

We shall use this latter term to express the physiologi-
cal infirmity ; and would like to see the name given to it
by Pinel, Idiotism, preserved to express the specific condi-
tion of mind pertaining to idiocy.

Its definitions have been so numerous, they are so differ-
ent one from the other, and they have so little bearing on
the treatment, that their omission cannot be much felt in a
practical treatise. Our own, if objectionable, will be found
at least to correspond to a plan of treatment, both support-
ing each other ; and may suffice until a better definition and
a better treatment can be devised.

Idiocy is a spedjic infirmity of the craniospinal axis, pro-
diLced hy deficiency of nutrition in utero and in neo-nati. It
incapacitates, mostly the functions which give rise to the
reflex, instinctive, and conscious phenomena of life ; conse-
quently, the idiot moves, feels, understands, wills, but
imperfectly ; does nothing, "thinks of nothing, cares for
nothing (extreme cases), he is a minor legally irresponsible ;

40 IDIOCY.

isolated, without associations ; a soul shut up in imperfect
organs, an innocent.

The modus operandi of deficiency of nutrition in the
first period of life has not yet been fully investigated ; it
may bear upon all the tissues, but we are concerned here
mostly with its action on the nervous system.

At the time when deficiency of nutrition takes place it
stops the fcetal progress, and gives permanency to the
transitory type through which the foetus was passing;
these transient types being to some extent analogous to the
persistent forms of the- lower animals. For instance,
atresia palpebrarum testifies to the presence of the cause of
arrest of development as far back as the third month of
gestation; arrest of development of the inter-auricular
septum leaves the human heart homologous with the heart
of fishes ; similar early arrest of nutrition of the encephalon
leaves its circumvolutions unfinished at the low types of the
orang-outang, the calf, or even lower. After the time at
which deficiency of nutrition has stopped the ascending
evolutions of the embryo at one of its low types, it some-
times continues its deleterious action of altering, or entirely
destroying the foetus also. For instance, it may destroy
one of two foetuses for the nutrition of the other, leaving
next to the spared one an acephalus, or only a few frag-
ments of an organized being ; or it may partially destroy an
encephalon at any stage of development, even after birth,
by the intervening of hydrocephalus ; or it may give rise
to some embryonic malady, destructive of a set of organs
or of functions. Though deficiency of nutrition may affect
the whole being, it strikes by preference one set of organs.

IDIOCY. 41

such as those of speech, of bearing, of local contractility.
Deficiency of nutrition happens in two ways ; slowly, when
induced by depressing influences ; or at once, when brought
on by a shock. Hence, the first leaves the child a prey to
maladies of embryonic origin, or at best at a low point of
vitality ; the other leaves him well provided for by anterior
nutrition, but torpid, or a prey to automatism, epilepsy,
etc. <.'>

It is true that we ignore most of the influences which
produce deficiency of nutrition in utero, but the fact itself
cannot be denied. Impressions will sometimes reach the
foetus in its recess, cut off its legs or arms, or inflict large
flesh-wounds before birth : inexplicable as well as indis-
putable facts, from which we surmise that idiocy holds
unknown though certain relations to maternal impressions
as modificators of placental nutrition. Farther, ignorance
stops us. On the threshold of the investigation, instead of
knowing all the causes of deficiency of nutrition, we are
delayed by the necessity of studying the circumstances
in which it appears, and so often produces idiocy.

The circumstances which favor the production of idiocy
are endemic, hereditary, parental, or accidental. Idiocy
is endemic only as connected with some forms of creti-
nism. It is considered hereditary where there have been
cases of idiocy or of insanity in the preceding or collateral
generations. It is called parental when referred to certain
conditions of the father or mother. The direct influence of
the former ceases after conception, the intimacy of the latter
with her fruit is incessant during the eventful periods of
gestation and lactation ; hence the share of the mother in

42 IDIOCY.

tbe circumstances favoring the production of idiocy is the
larger. She may have been under-fed in poverty herself, or
through previous generations; or so miserably enervated
by music, perfumes, savors, pictures, books, theatres, asso-
ciations, that. a precocious loveliness has outgrown her
motherly capabilities, as forcing converts the pistils and
stamens of flowers into beautiful fruitless petals.

She, being pregnant, has used for exclusive food unnutri-
tious substances, such as pickles, dainties, lemons, tea,
brandies, etc. ; or vomited all real food soon after inges-
tion.

She has conceived at- a time when spermatozoa
have encountered noxious fluids of venereal or menstrual
origin, or have been altered in their vitality previous to
their emission by drunkenness, etc. She is often passive
under the causes of impressions, depressions, shocks, priva-
tions, exertions, abuses, excesses, altering the nutrition of the
unborn or new-born child.

But all these circumstances do not seem to act with the
same energy or frequency in the production of idiocy, which
is attributed most of the time, by women worthy of being
trusted, to sudden or protracted impressions of an acciden-
tal or moral nature. The same testimony appears to
extend the power of these circumstances through the period
of lactation, in which mothers, morally affected, have seen
symptoms precursor of idiocy, such as convulsions, follow
immediately the ingestion of milk, and idiocy, paralysis,
epilepsy, or death supervene.

Accidental idiocy, after birth, is caused by unnutritious
diet, want of insolation and of other hygienic requisites; by

IDIOCY. 43

hydrocephalus, measles, whooping-cough, intermittent fever,
etc.

In the above circumstances, as far as we have learned,
must we look for the origin of idiocy and its annexes.
But everything pertaining to conception, gestation, parturi-
tion, lactation, remains enshrouded behind the veil of Isis.
K women would only speak, we should be able to call upon
them in the name of science, a social protection they do not
seem to need, nor care for in their present mutism ; and we
should soon be enabled to generalize from their individual
experience frankly told, the laws of anomalous creation in
our race. Since idiocy is ascribed to so many circumstan-
ces, taking place at such different periods of the formation
of the child, it is not to be expected that it should assume an
identical appearance ; in fact, on entering a school, the idea
of similarity is soon dispelled by the heterogeneous features
of the inmates ; therefore the same drawing cannot repre-
sent them but as a type, after a practical study of the vari-
eties. These varieties are simple and complicated idiocy.

To clear the field we begin with the last named.

Endemic idiocy is interwoven with alpine or lowland
cretinism and bronchocele, producing at birth the cretin-
idiot, in youth the cretin-imbecile, and after puberty the
cretin (simplex), able to procreate his like. Thus cretin-
ism, besides its apparent geological connexion or origin, is
hereditary, like scrofula ; a taint in the blood, preparing
children for idiocy or imbecility, according to the age of its
invasion. This alpine cretinism is due to locality and to
intermarriage, and it is never isolated ; it affects the skin
with a bistre or maroon color. Its action does not cease

44: IDIOCY.

after having produced idiocy, for if its victim be put in a
locality where cretinism vfill aggrayate, idiocy will do the
same ; and if placed in circumstances of climate, of hygi-
ene, of exercise, where cretinism may improve, idiocy will
also improve, and shall become more amenable to the phy-
siological treatment, as the labors and devotion of Guggen-
biil have abundantly proved. The low-land cretinism of
Belgium, of Virginia, etc., with its discrete goitre, its grey
and dirty straw-colored skin, bears the same relation to
idiocy and imbecility as the more extensive alpine variety.

So does the furfuraceous cretinism, with its milk-white,
rosy, and peeling skin ; with its shortcomings of all the
integuments, which give an unfinished aspect to the trun-
cated fingers and nose ; with its cracked lips and tongue ;
with its red, ectropic conjunetiya, coming out to supply the
curtailed skin at the margin of the lids.

Let uff here remark that bronchocele may iexist with or
without cretinism, or cretinism with or without broncho-
cele ; but that cretinism cannot be "found without being
allied to one of the three alterations of the integuments
above described.

.These alterations are not observable in the following
forms of complicated idiocy :

Infantile convulsions may produce idiocy; epileptic
seizures strike with idiocy in the first age, with imbecility
in the second, later with dementia. Idiocy receives a
deleterious influence from epilepsy; attacks of which
sometimes obliterate the faculties gradually and steadily ;
at other times they carry away at one sweep all mental
acquirements for a time, or permanently.

IDIOCY. 45

Chorea acts in like manner, less suddenly but with more
steadiness, by the incessant shaking of the whole frame,
through the nervous " dance." That is the way in which
it gives unsteadiness to every movement, to every impres-
sion, to every expression, keeping the subject in a state of
tremulousness, unfit to be the starting-point of physical and
intellectual operations, and of forming or transmitting cor-
rectly the orders of the will. Hence the difficulty of im-
proving idiocy before curing chorea ; and if we do not
succeed in this, shattered nerves, a tendency to tetanic hor-
rors, epilepsy and paralysis may be expected.

Extensive paralysis or contractures, particularly when
affecting the upper limbs, act by depriving the child of
important means of communication and of knowledge,
producing the symptoms of superficial and aggravating
those of profound idiocy, where this latter co-exists with
these accessory infirmities.

Deafness and blindness from birth have the same effects
as paralysis on ungifted children, by depriving them of the
cognizance of a whole series of phenomena. But it is a fact
curious enough to be noted, that partial obliteration of one
of these channels of knowledge will produce the symptoms
of superficial idiocy surer than its complete destruction.
One must not forget that those two infirmities, cecity and
deafness from birth, leave in the best educated an idiosyn-
crasy dreaded in the workshops where the deaf or blind
might otherwise compete with other mechanics.

We note as important that idiocy is more frequently
met with epilepsy and chorea, less with paralysis and
contractures, least of all with deafness and blindness;

46 IDIOCY.

and that its decreasing severity is quite in the same
ratio.

We come now to unmixed or simple idiocy.

Idiocy without complication presents itself under various
aspects ; and we have shown that it could not be otherwise,
since some of the circumstances already known as favoring
its production are themselves so varied. This diversity of
character will be fully exposed in the following division
of idiocy, in the analysis of its symptoms, and in sub-
sequent observations.

Idiocy is called profound when the ganglia are altered,
and superficial when the peripheral termini of contractility
and sensation only seem to be affected. It is called organic
when the organs are sensibly altered, and functional when
our imperfect instruments and observation do not permit us
to trace the organic lesion as we do the functional disorder.
It is called sthenic when it gives the child nervous impulses
without object ; and asthenic when it leaves him without
them, when they are wanted for some object. Though we
are ready to acknowledge these last apparently contradictory
symptoms as simple manifestations of the same low type of
vitality, produced by difference of circumstances, never-
theless, these symptoms give too precious an indication of
the different treatment required for each, to be omitted ;
since the division founded upon them has a practical, if not
a truly scientific import. Other divisions might be devisee^
but as they bear on the psychological symptoms exclu-
sively, and repose more on degrees than on differences, they
are more apt to disclose the ingenuity of their framera than
to prove new and beneficial.

IDIOCY. 47

In regard to the pathology of our subject, we will divide'
it into organic and physiological.

Organic pathology relates to shape, size, proportions and
other characteristics observable on the living ; and to alter-
ations of internal structures which diagnosis may suspect,
but anatomy alone can disclose.

The pathological symptoms of idiocy have, unfortu-
nately, been described only by nien who never knew or
never taught anything about the subjects of their post-
mortems ; so that we have descriptions, masterly or not, of
organic anomalies, without a word of their corresponding
psycho-physiological symptoms. Such a thing could not
be done for any other pathological condition than idiocy,
without meeting with the most merited censure. If we,
personally, deserve the contrary disapprobation for having
studied the physiology of idiocy more than its pathology,
the exceptional difficulties we encountered, and the novelty
of the undertaking are our excuses.

Though idiocy does not stamp children with any particu-
lar shape of the body, still, be it the effect of unequal
nutrition, of want of normal activity, of will in the gather-
ing up of the limbs to the body to form the various
attitudes, the great majority of idiots seem to be not so
much ill-shaped as ill-proportioned ; the exceptions of
splendid build covered with rich integuments, belong par-
ticularly to cases in which may be detected a tendency to
insanity, or some complication, such as paralysis of the
organs of speech.

When the central nervous apparatus is affected in idiocy,
the following alterations may be noticed. The substance

48 IDIOCY.

of the brain is softer generally, or partially harder, and as it
were shrivelled. The color is paler, with less distinction
between the white and grey matters. The circumvolutions
are neither so numerous nor so well defined on the surface,
nor so deeply penetrating. The hemispheres do not
expand above the sensory ganglia and cerebelluna with
their normal amplitude. The lateral and posterior lobes
being particularly short of their normal expansions ; the
cerebellum which is not fully covered by the hemispheres
being larger in proportion.

If the cranium were always and everywhere of the same
thickness, and if the brain were always filling the whole of
its cavity, the external configuration of the skull might- be
taken as the counterpart of the form of the brain, and used as
the relative measure of its bulk. Bnt the reverse is true.
Crania are very thick or very thin, partly thick and partly
thin, particularly so at the frontal sinus, the tables of which
are often besides vastly apart. Moreover, the brain is very
far from always adapting itself with the same exactness in
reality as in theory to the form of the cranium. In fact
there are cases in which the brain presses so strongly
against the cranium, that either the internal table is eroded
by the convolutions and bears a deep imprint of them, or
other cases in which the compression exercised by the
unyielding cranium is such as to deface all convolutions and
enfractuosities of the hypertrophied mass ; cases in which
the distension of the cranium is due to the presence of a
tumor, of hydrocephalus, or of hypertrophy ; anomalies as
difficult to discriminate on the living subject as the thick-
ened tables of the skull.

IDIOCY. 49

If we pass from tte sizes of large skulls, wliich are attri-
buted to hydrocephalic origin, to those which present
microcephalic proportions, we shall see that we cannot
judge by them more accurately of the condition of the
brain. Sometimes a very small skull encloses quite a
bulky and healthy encephalon ; sometimes the skull will
not be so very small, only irregular, and disclose internal
anomalies, such as the following found by Lebert.* " Cere-
brum very small, right hemisphere larger and ^bombS,'
left smaller and flattened ; circumvolutions narrow, more
so posteriorly, where they are of the size of ground worms ;
they are twisted, and in their course are puifed up and
constricted alternatively." In other cases, the hemispheres
may be found almost without convolutions, and the medul-
lary substance covered only with a thin layer of cineritious
matter. Or, in the absence of the corpus callosum, the
hemispheres were found to communicate only through the
medium of the anterior and posterior commissures. Or,
the pineal and pituitary bodies were much atrophied.
These anomalies and many mare are recorded from the
autopsies of microcephalic idiots, but as usual without a
word as to their corresponding psycho-physiological disa-
bilities.

To sum up what we have said about size by two extreme
cases, we are acquainted with a lady, fifty years of age,
whose head measures twenty-seven inches in circumference,
and above twenty-two from one external auditory foramen
to the other across the vertex, who could, in younger days,

, * Trait^ d'Anatomie Pathologique. .Vol. I., p. 84. PI. IX., fig. 1 and 2.

50 IDIOCY.

perform the duties of a Sunday-school teacher, and even
now behaves like a lady in every respept. And we have
seen enough of the Aztec children, so well observed by
Dr. John 0. Dal ton, whose heads are under thirteen inches
in circumference, to be sure that, previous to their train-
ing as show-things, they could have been educated
like human beings, and improved as much as extreme
microcephalic children have been by Drs. S. Howe and
H. B. Wilbur (see Observations in Appendix). To close
what we have to say about the size of the heads of
idiots; it is most of the time quite normal, though it
looks too big in infancy, because it stands on a sickly
frame, and too small later, because the body has grown
and the head has not, owing to the deficiency of special
nutrition and to deprivation of intellectual gymnastics.
Lastly, the two tables of crania, large or small, not being
exactly parallel, and being sometimes very far apart,
the internal capacity of the skull cannot be founded upon
its external measurements. Hence, observers have tried to
obviate this dif&culty, at Jeast on the dead, by measuring
the internal capacity with instruments, liquids, sand, of
seeds ; but these new means could no more be invoked as
tests of idiocy than the measure of the external size ; since
that cavity was not on the living necessarily filled up with
medullary and cortical substance ; and since savages are
endowed with the full capacity allotted to their race, who '
have heads whose size is inferior to that of the idiots of
ours.

If we pass from the consideration of the external size
and internal capacity to that of shape, we see, equally, all

IDIOCY. 51

sorts of forms among the heads of idiots. The shape of
the head may be altered from its primitive type in each
race by disease or by art. Idiocy presents mostly the fol-
lowing deformities : Heads flattened anteriorly or poste-
riorly, or circularly compressed to a cone, which tends
upward or backward ; flattened at the sides, or at the top ;
very low or very high, as if crowned by a stony table, or
bilobed by a depression running along the coronal suture ;
or with both parietal eminences greatly exaggerated ; .or
the vertex expanded like a balloon, whose neck would be
represented by the compressed forehead and lower lateral
bones, reposing on a diminutive face. These deformities
are the principal, but many idiots do not present any of
them, whilst they are found among people who practice
them, not to incapacitate their children, but to make their
heads correspond to some desired type by a sort of plastic
orthophreny. We notice, besides, two kinds of dispropor-
tion in the component parts of the cranium. One from
side to side, which, very rarely extreme, is seen accident:
ally in idiots and insanes ; but which, in its milder forms,
may be detected on, we may say, any cranium ; even the
circumvolutions presenting commonly, from side to side,
disproportions and differences : consequently the dispropor-
tion from side to side of the head is not a test of idiocy.

The other disproportion affects the relative development
of the three segments forming the vault of the cranium ;
we will consider them in their relative expansion, and in
their mode of uniting to form" a cavity. The posterior
segment contains the cerebellum, and so much of the
hemispheres as expands over it in proportion to natural or

52 IDIOCY.

acquired development ; the second contains the .primitive
cerebrum, the tubercula quadrigemina, and other ganglia ;
the third contains the largest accretions made to the human
brain, according to race and education, in such a bulk as to
atrophy the olfactory lobes, to depress the orbital cavities,
and to raise the vault of the frontal bone very sensibly
since the short period of two thousand years, as appears by
all the monuments of our race. The harmonious develop-
ment of these three parts, according to the standard for
each race, represents the harmony of manly functions ; and
when it exists in large encephalic masses, insures great
mental power.

Considering the modes of formation of the sutures by
which the bones are united ; the suture may be formed too
hastily, when there is atrophy of the brain, and are smooth
and cannot be felt; or under the influence of a serous
inflammation, and then their serrated structure is felt
rough and elevated by the finger through the thin integu-
ments. But when circumstances have prevented or re-
tarded the formation of the sutures, palpation detects the
opened or imperfectly closed fontanelles, the presence of
wormian bones in anormal numbers, or the loose condition
of the coronal, sagittal, and lamdoid sutures.

In the relative development of the segments, and in their
modes of suture to form the cranium, resides the harmony
or disharmony which strikes more than size or shape in
human heads. Reserving the exceptions, any deviation
from the Caucasian type among our children, in respect to
harmony of proportions, must be looked upon, a prion, as
representing some anomaly in their faculties ; and any im-

IDIOCY. 53

perfection in the mode of union of the segments of the skull
cannot fail to enlighten the etiology and pathology of our
subject.

Nothing hinders us now from entering into the study
of the physiological symptoms after having taken a rapid
survey of the infant born idiotic, or predisposed to
idiocy.

The only thing which could tempt us to form a diag-
nosis when the child is just born, is the often monstrous
shape exhibited by the head. But it is so difficult to
appreciate what part of it is due to deficiency of nutrition
o'r to transitory compressions from manoeuvres or instru-
ments ; and the head is endowed with such a power of
reaction and self- modulation against these transient deform-
ities, that we had better let it receive its own finishing
touch before venturing on the expression of a judgment
upon its unfinished state. But after the first cries, the child
shuts himself up into a chrysalid life. He is rosy and
rather puffy, or greyish and shrivelled in his loose integu-
ments, according to his general health. For a time nothing
more of him may be foreseen than is seen. Even a few
months later, if the mother, feeling her baby without
reaction in her embrace, seized with a secret presentiment,
seeks for advice, the physician rarely happens to see him
otherwise than nursing and sleeping. He has scarcely the
chance to notice the head hanging back, or rolled on the
pillow automatically ; the eyes unlighted and playing the
pendulum in their, sockets, fixed, or upward or sideways ; the
difiiculty of swallowing the milk once drawn in the mouth ;
the absence of voice or its animal sounds ; the inability of

64 IDIOCY.

the spine to support the body ; the flaccidity of the legs ;
the hands closed, thumbs inward, by the side instead of
coming out from the cradle to take with a firm grasp
their share of this world.

In the midst of this uncertainty, profuse salivation,
involuntary excretions, imperfect sensations or disordered
movements appear daily more settled, instead of the
opposite abilities vainly expected. Or after a fall, a blow,
exposure to cold, insolation, •prolonged succussions, fright,
or in the period of teething, coma sets in or convulsions
appear. After which some function of the reflex or
voluntary order, motor or sensitive, is. impaired. But the
commotion of the cerebro-spinal axis may be temporary or
prolonged, producing more convulsions, deeper coma, other
incapacitations ; throwing the little sufferer far behind his
fellows, or leaving him a confirmed idiot. Between these
two extremes the majority of young idiots do not differ
very sensibly from common babies ; because the power of
both may be expressed by the same verb, they cannot.
But to-morrow the well infant will use his hands, the
idiot will allow his to hang in half flexion ; the first will
move his head at will, the second will toss it about ; the
look of the former penetrates every day farther than the
domain of the touch, that of the latter has no straight dart,
and wanders from the inner to the outer canthus ; the one
will sit erect on his spine, the other shall remain recumbent
where left ; the first will laugh in your face with a conta^
gious will, the second shall not be moved into an intellec-
tual or social, expression by any provocation whatever.
And each day carves more deeply the differential charac-

IDIOCY. 55

ters of both ; not by making the idiot worse, unless from
bad habits gotten by neglect, but by the hourly progress
of the other. Idiocy so viewed from its origin is a continu-
ance of the isolation and helplessness of babyhood under
ampler forms and obsolete proportions. Compared unavoid-
ably with children of his age, the idiot seems to grow worse
every day ; his tardy improvement looking like backward
steps. With his incapacity of action, of expression, oi
feeling, he makes a sickening sight indeed by the side of
a bright child entering into the intricacies of life as on an
open play-ground.

At this stage there can be no mistake ; we see plainly
what he is, and we can describe what we see. This is the
time when the study of the physiological symptoms will
make up for the deficiency of the anatomo-pathological
ones.

The functions of organic life are generally below the
normal standard. The respiration is not deep ; the pulse is
without resistance. The appetite is sometimes quite anormal
in its objects or limited to a few things, rarely voracious,
though it looks so, owing to the unconventional or. decided-
ly animal modes. of eating and drinking of these children.
The swallowing of the food without being masticated, only
rolled up in saliva, resumes many of these imperfections
which are to be attributed in variable proportions to
absence of intelligence, want of action of the will on the
organs of mastication and deglutition, deformity of and
want of relation between the same. As might be expected,
imperfect chewing produces on them, as on other children,
unpleasant effects, but no more. Their excretions cannot

£16 IDIOCY.

be said to present any dissimilarity from those of others
which our senses can discriminate ; only their sebaceous
matters are as different from ours as ours are from those of
the variously colored races, or from those emitted in most

The functions of animal life, or of relation, are generally
affected in idiocy ; either by perversion, diminution, or
suppression. We shall begin the study of these anomalies
in the organs whose contractility has for object the move-
ments of displacement and prehension.

The incapacity of walking, and of prehending objects, to
whatever degree it exists, gives the measure of the isola-
tion of the idiot. He is isolated because he cannot go to
the distant phenomena; he is isolated because he cannot
possess himself of those which come in the range of his
imperfect grasp ; he is doubly immured in his muscular
infirmity. The same motor function may exist, but escap-
ing the control of the will, it produces movements more or
less disordered, mechanical, spasmodic, or automatic. Dis-
ordered, when their want of harmony prevents the accom-
plishment of their object ; mechanical, when their recur-
rence, in the course of other normal movements, cannot be
otherwise produced or prevented, but can hardly be post-
poned by a superior influence ; spasmodic, when they pro-
ceed from an accessory condition of the nerves congener to
chorea or epilepsy ; automatic, when they consist in the
continuity or frequent recurrence of a single unavoidable
gesture, without object or meaning. The simple disorder
of movements involves a waste of nervous power, disabling,
more or less, the child for useful activity, but not depriving

IDIOCY. 57

him of it entirely. The mechanism throws, unexpectedly,
some instinctive jerk or motion in the midst of well-regu-
lated actions. The spasmodism accompanies all actions, as
in chorea, or substitutes itself at times for all the normal
acts, as in epileptic seizures. The automatism acts as a
substitute for all, or nearly all other modes of contractili-
ty ; it incapacitates more and more the child's muscular
power for any useful purposes ; and, as a sorry compensa-
tion, furnishes him with a supply of involuntary instead of
voluntary exercise. Of the four anormal ways of expend-
ing uselessly and unwillingly the contractile force allotted
to the muscular system, automatism is "the most tenacious,
when, for years past, no physiological action has been
induced by proper training in its stead.

Idiocy affects the body in its general habits, as bending
forward, throwing the head backward, moving it in a rota-
tory manner which seems impossible, swinging the body to
and fro, or in a sort of sideway roll.

Another anomaly of contractility is its difference in
either side. Whatever wise provisions have been made to
secure the unity of action of the two sides which look like
two men living right and left under the same skin and
name, as anastomoses everywhere, decussations in the
medulla spinalis, medulla oblongata, and nerves of special
sense ; connection of both cerebrum and cerebellum, by the
■ pons varolii, corpus callosum, and commissures ; notwith-
standing all these, one side of the body, of the limbs, of the
nerves, and, some observers think, of the brain too, seems
to take the lead. "Who uses equally both hands ? Who

is sure that he does not think and express himself mostly

4

58 IDIOCY.

by the impulse of a single hemisphere ? These apparent de-
viations from the pre-ordained human type strikes more in
idiots, who are often more incapable, colder or weaker on one
side without hemiplegia, who walk better and step higher
with their left foot, who are oftener left-handed than ordi-
nary children, and who write, if not corrected, from right
to left, as the Bible was written. ■

Contrarily, idiots, but not the lowest, seek sometimes for
the repetition on one side of impressions they have previ-
ously received on the other, even if these inflict pain. But
common children are found doing the same, and very likely
continue to do it until experience has taught them the more
summary process of trusting to the experience of a single
side-apparatus.

The swinging of the body in walking, or in the sitting
posture, is characteristic of the disorders of contractil-
ity ; besides, it is no doubt connected with some defect of
the central nervous organs. We have seen similar uncer-
tainty of gait in persons who have received a severe shock,
or who labored under meningitis, who carried a large aneu-
rism, or after having repeated pleurisies on one side ; and
we noticed the same swinging in a young soldier who had
two bullets lodged in the left side of his chest. Besides,
a set of special organs may be separately or collectively
affected, as we have seen those of the movements of
totality by want of synergy, which simulates paralysis ; or '
by one of the anomalies of motion mentioned above. By
inability of transmitting the orders of the will to any of the
special organs, their functions are abolished or only altered
in many modes which challenge a general' description ; and

IDIOCY, 59

by the disorders of meclianism, automatism, etc. More-
over, special functions may be variously disordered in go
many ways, that sooner than writing a volume full of these
anomalies, we shall refer for their description, if important,
to some observations to be found at the end of this volume.
Another reason for not describing them separately is, that
they are ordinarily blended with those of special percep-
tion ; and that soQie of them will, in consequence, be
treated of, together with some nervous disorders, under
the common head of anomalies of the senses.

As we just premised, several anomalies of movement in
idiots are more or less allied to dullness, exaltation, or
other perversions of the touch ; and we have to mention a
few of these complications before studying the isolated
deviations of the sense itself. Dullness of tact incites some
idiots to strike their fingers against the hardest bodies, with
apparent pleasure and irresistible eagerness • others to
throw their thin-boned foreheads against persons and
things, making them rebound and resound as if suffering
were pleasure, or both these feelings abolished. Contra-
rily, some children whose hand-taot is null, or hand-touch
uneducated, substitute to them the head-tact and touch,
actually tacting. with the latter the things they desire or
repulse ; caressing with it the person they love. How
could so different aberrations of a sense exist in idiots?
But how is it that as soon as their hand is taught to touch,
their forehead loses the power of touching and feeling ?

The following are examples of another kind of hyperes-
thesia : — Some of our children will be unable to touch
anything, but with the delica,cy of the humming-bird, and

60 IDIOCY.

seem to suffer greatly from any other mode of contact im-
posed upon the hands. The feet of others are so much
affected with similar exaltation of sensibility, that the thin-
nest shoes i^ain them, and the contact of the softest carpet or
floor makes them recoil or advance, as if they could not
help it, and as if walking on live coals. The hands of one
child will move with prestidigitative briskness without
apparent object, single or interlaced, to intercept some rays
of light falling obliquely into their vacant eyes. Other
hands, affected with disorder of the touch, without obvious
complication, are caressed, sucked, bitten, till the blood
starts, or a heavy callus is formed to protect them ; others
are constantly bathed in saliva, and their skin nearly
resembles that of the washer- woman : these hands feel, out
of the mouth, like fish out of water. We could multiply
these examples of anomalies of sensation, single or double,
merely tactile or altogether tactile and contractile, by which
the hand is robbed of its powers as an instrument of touch,
as well as of prehension.

Setting aside these localized tactile disorders, general
sensibility proper is dull in idiots, who are soon benumbed
by cold and less affected by heat, but much prostrated by
the atmospheric modifications of a thunder-storm.

With them the Taste and Smell are oftener indifferent
than anormal. Rarely . we see them have a taste for
non-alimentary substances, or an exclusive appetence for
one kind of food. Some of them, without swallowing,
chew beads, suck pieces of broken china, etc., with appa-
rent relish. The smell may take possession of the same
articles and scent them for hours, or delight in the fragrance

IDIOCT. 61

of two pieces of silex, stricken one against the other; or,
this sense may substitute itself for any other, as a means of
discrimination and knowledge; or, on the contrary, be
dead-like to all intent and appearance. But the difference
between the errors of function of these two senses is, that
the taste is oftener depraved, and the smell is more fre-
quently exalted.

The Hearing is sometimes so passive and limited, and the
intellectual wants so disinterested to the noises transmitted
to the ear, that the idiot, though possessed of perfect organs
of audition, is practically deaf, and, of course, mute ; no
deafness, and yet no hearing. Therefore, it is prudent to
remember that next to the deafness from birth, or from
infantile diseases, there is an intellectual deafness from
idiocy ; the only one which we shall specially consider.
In this interesting condition the child may hear, and even
audit the sound of objects that he knows and wishes for,
and none other. For instance, he hears music, and no
articulated voices ; or he may retain and repeat tunes, and
not be able to hear or repeat a single word. He may even,
in extreme cases, be absolutely indifferent, and, conse-
quently, appear really insensible to sounds ; and then the
diagnosis has to be postponed till the state of the organ
and function is thoroughly ascertained by an experimental
training of that sense. So far, he is practically deaf and
mute, but is not so organically. This dif&cult point in
diagnosis has caused many mistakes.

The Sight may be as badly and more ostentatiously
impaired than the hearing. Be it fixed in one canthus, be
it wandering and unfixable, be it glossy, laughing, like a

62 IDIOCY.

picture moving behind a motionless varnish, be it dull and
immured to images, its meanings are not doubtful ; it
means idiocy. Our expressions here would be very incor-
rect if they conveyed the idea that these defects of vision
prevent the child from seeing. The images being printed
on their passing into the ocular chamber, as the river-side
scenery is on the passing current, the child, -when he pays an
accidental attention, gets a notion of some of them, but the
transitory perception produced thereby can hardly serve him
for educational purposes. The principal characters of this
infirmity are, the repugnance of the child to look and the
incapacity of his will to control the organs of vision ; he
sees by chance, but never looks. These defects of the sight,
when grave, are always connected with automatic motions,
and both oppose serious obstacles to progress ; one by the
ease with which the child can use his negative will to pre-
vent the training of his eyes, the other by depriving him
of all knowledge to be acquired farther than the touch can
reach. This complication makes a child look very unfa-
vorably indeed, and increases much the task of his teacher.

Some idiots are deprived of speech, that is to say, do not
pronounce a word. Some, speaking a few words more or
less connected in sentences, have yet no language ; for the
word language conveys with it the meaning of interchange
of ideas. In this acceptation, language does not belong to
idiots before they are educated, nor to those who are but
imperfectly so, and, consequently, they have a speech more
or less limited, but no language : strictly speaking, speech
represents the function, language the faculty.

When we come to examine the anomalies of the speech,

IDIOCT. 63

as here defined, it is well to exclude, previously, the many
organic disorders which may interfere with it as a function,
and which have nothing to do with idiocy ^but as an
external impediment and exogenous aggravation. For,
because a child is idiotic, it does not necessarily follow that
his organs of perceiving speech and of expressing language
may not be impaired by some independent affection.
Idiotic or intelligent, a child may be deprived of hearing,
or of the movements necessary to form the speech, directly
by malformation or paralysis, , or indirectly by the many
causes producing deafness. These are the causes of the
organic mutism which must never be attributed to idiocy,
but which too often aggravates it.

To substantiate in a few words the causes of the func-
tional mutism derived from idiocy, we point out, first, the
incapacity of the will to move the organs ; second, the long
silence in which idiots have confirmed their mutism, like
prisoners have gotten theirs in protracted confinement ;
third, the absence of persevering and intelligent efforts of
their friendu to make them speak ; fourth, the want of
desire to exercise that function, and the want of under-
standing of the power of speech as a faculty.

•In this wreck of powers, one human, irresistible tendency
or impulse is left him ; for as low as we find him, lower
than the brute in regard to activity and intelligence, he has,
as the great, the lowly, the privileged,; the millions, his
hobby or, amulet that no animal has: the external thing
toward which, his human, centrifugal power gravitates ; if
it be only a broken piece of china, a thread, a rag, an
unseizable ray of the sun, he shall spend his life in admir-

64 IDIOCY.

ing, kissing, catching, polishing, sucking it, according to
what it may be. Till we take away that amulet, as Moses
took it from his people, we must have something to substi-
tute for it. This worship or occupation shows that if the
idiot can form, of himself, no other connexion with the
world, he is ready to do so if we only know how to help
him.

That the idiot is endowed with a moral nature, no one
who has had the happiness of ministering to him will deny.
Epileptic, paralytic, choreic, or imbecile children will often
strike or bite their mother or affectionate attendant. If
any idiot is found doing the same (and we never found
any) he must have been taught it by some cruel treatment
imposed upon him. In general, as soon as his mind is
opened to reflection, the tender family feelings are so deep
in him that they often interfere with his successful trans-
plantation into the broader and richer ground of our public
institutions. It is true that his habits are sad, droll, or
repulsive ; that his doings are often worse than none ; but
these manifestations exhibit as much the carelessness and
want of intelligence of the parents or keepers as they do
the primary character of the infirmity. Does not the idiot,
in making his silly gestures, tacitly say, " See what I am
doing ; if you knew how to teach me better and more I
would do it." It is true, that previo.us to being educated,
the slightest work is too much for him, and makes him
recoil ; but if we succeed in making him believe that he
has accomplished a real object, emulation will appear and
shed a ray of satisfaction over his face. He is sensible to
eulogy, reproach, command, menace, even to imaginary

IDIOCY. 65

punishment; he sympathizes with the, pains he can under-
stand; he loves those who love him; he. tries to please
those who please him ; his sense of duty and propriety is
limited, but perfect in its kind ; his egotism is moderate ;
his possessive and retentive propensities sufficient; his
courage, if not Samsonian, is not aggressive, and may easily
be cultivated. As a collective body, idiotic children are,
in their institutions, equal in order and decency, in true
lovingness, if not in loveliness, to any collection of children
in the land. Their moral powers are influenced by isola-
tion, company, multitude, silence, turmoil, music, human
eloquence, as they are in all masses of mankinds If we
are asked how we pretend to see all these good and pro-
mising dispositions in the unfortunate subject whom we
have depicted as more or less motionless, speechless and
repulsive, we can affirm that the idiot, even when neglected
in his lowest conditions, does not manifest any character
contrary to the one here described ; a character which we
have seen him assume, steadily and uniformly, under the
influence of a proper training, and, as we firmly believe,
in virtue of his own moral nature : he is one of us in man-
kind, but shut up in an imperfect envelope.

Therefore, we must not confound with imbeciles, insanes,
epileptics, etc., the harmless idiot, sitting awkwardly, bash-
ful, or at least reserved on our approach. He will answer
us if he can, rarely mistaking, never deceiving, but often-
times failing to understand. His mind is extremely limited
but not deranged, and with no special tendency to final
insanity. He has been hurt often, but he never assailed
anybody ; he loves quiet places and arrangements ; repeated

m iDiocir.

monotonous sounds, or stillness, and above all plain and
familiar faces ; he has a look, not of envy at things and per-
sons, but of abstraction, gazing far out of this world into a
something which neither we nor he can discern.
' How could any child, subject to other disease or infir-
firmity, be mistaken for him ? Nevertheless this confusion
takes place. Practically and legally, the idiot has been
assimilated to unfortunate beings whose rights upon society
are different from his ; and he has suffered deeply by the
mistake.

The child nearest akin to an idiot is called simply
backward, in French enfant arrieri; his character may
be better delineated by comparison with the idiot, who
presents even in superficial cases, an arrest of develop-
ment, whilst the feeble-minded child is only retarded in
his. The idiot has disordinate movements, cannot use his
hands, swings his body in walking, presents some sensorial
vices or incapacity ; on the pther hand, the backward child
is free from any disordered activity, uses his hands naturally
but with very little effectiveness, walks 'without defect, but
without firmness or elasticity, presents no sensorial anomaly
but does not much use his senses to quicken his sluggish
comprehension ; when the idiot does not seem to make any
progress, and when the ordinary child improves in the
ratio of ten, the backward child improves only in that of
one, two, three, or five. This child may be, and is in fact,
actually educated with the confirmed idiot ; and there is no
inconvenience, but advantage, in their being treated alike.

Thei same could not be said of the following case which
is how as rarely met among idiots, as it frequently was

IDIOCY. 67

thirty years ago in the "hospices" and poor-houses. He
looks dignified, sad, depressed, wistful, immovable, idiotic —
but worse than an idiot, he is a dement. There does not
seem to be a sensible difference between them, but idiocy is
accompanied by some sensorial disorders, begins young, by
its worst symptoms, and generally ends quite early;
whilst dementia commences in later life, is accompanied by
an insidious touch of paralysis, especially of the sphincters ;
it soon alters the alas nasi and the external auditory appa-
ratus, and eventually may continue to a great age, ending
by its worst symptoms.

A young. lad who looks and stands like an idiot, with
deep, dull eyes, hollow cheeks, thin hanging hands, flesh
gone from his long, lank limbs, and empty frame; a prey
to fever, languor, inappetence; tired of everything, for-
getting instead of learning, avoiding company and light,
sleepless yet never wide awake, speech embarrassed, mind
absent, hope, gayety, cheerfulness, friendship, love, future,
all given up for the worship of one's self, and of a few
apparitions evoked by the mania of self-destruction ; his
tendency is toward early death, through imbecility or
dementia.

Though insanity is not common among children, it is
easily mistaken in them for idiocy, notwithstanding that
every day marks a new difference between the two. Thus
incipient insanity does not affect the general, nor the
special movements as idiocy does ; nor the general, but the
sensorial sensibility, producing mistaken sensations as
hallucinations, that idiocy doe's not. Intellectually, the
young insane may leariQ easily or with incredible facility ;

68 IDIOCY.

but has rarely the comprehensive retention which amasses
true learning ; the idiot has a negative will or none, the
insane has a deep, fated-like determination. We have
observed two classes of these children laboring under a
more or less confirmed tendency to insanity. One has a
firm step, bright colors, and general richness of tissue; his
ears reddening occasionally, and his eyes flashing instead
of quietly looking. Incapable of attention though he tries
hard, loving and impressible, there may be something the
matter with his speech, as periods of mutism and of loqua-
city; thus, by times, he cannot repeat a word, and at others
he will spontaneously emit several sentences. He com-
mands with difficulty to his movements, as those necessary
for drawing, gymnastics, etc. He is clean, has no
difficulty in dressing himself, his hands are perfect, no
function seems altered; but the older he grows, the stranger
he looks, till finally he gives signs of incoherence. The
other one is a fine child too, physically, but rather pale
and angular. His traits of character are more strongly-
delineated than those of the first. His features are sharper,
his look more shaded by the brow, his mind deeper, his
intellectual culture easier, his moral propensities worse.
He is jealous, cruel, unflinching, yielding to force only,
losing nothing of his natural tendency to cruel sprightli-
ness under a temporary pressure of authority. He has ot
the idiot neither the gentleness, the blank look, the
deficiency of understanding, the timidity, the obedience,
the affection. Every day shows his moral character by
more and more of these traits which make him dangerous,
and fit him only for seclusion. "When quite young; chil-

IDIOCY, 69

dren such as these are readily accepted in the institution for
idiots, because they do not then apparently differ from
these latter; as the baby idiot looks like a well-born child,
as long as both cannot make any comparative show of
activity ; so, as long as there can be no display of reasoning
or of human passions it is nearly impossible to discrimi-
nate them. Of the two kinds of children with insane
propensities, the first needs more education, and is more
impervious to it; the second requires more moral train-
ing, and is the more refractory to its rules. We have
studied only those two classes of children tending to insan-
ity, but we think that there are several more.

Next, and last, we notice the imbecile who, whatever
may be the origin of his infirmity, is generally mistaken
for an idiot. He is rarely aifected with muscular or senso-
rial disorders, unless from accessory causes, such as chorea,
or hemiplegia, or made worse by self-abuse ; his affection is
more referable to the condition of the nervous centres, and
is of an intellectual cast, bearing on attention, memory, rea-
son, etc. He has arrived at that condition of mental dege-
neration by any of the circumstances which produce defi-
ciency of nutrition, and cause idiocy in early life, and
imbecility in subsequent years. The imbecile having, pre-
viously to the arrest of his development, acquired expe-
rience of things and persons, and gathered, consequently,
instinctive and social feelings ; the same cause which leaves,
at the outset of life, the idiot incapable, ignorant and inno-
cent, leaves, later, the imbecile self-confident, half-witted,
and ready to receive immoral impressions, satisfactory to
his intense egotism. Hence, we see him coming forward

70 IDIOCY.

with an ungainly aspect, making show of his trinkets, and
offering them for trade ; he can read, more or less ; speaks
confusedly, and recites verses with pouting emphasis and
sprinkling of saliva. He might do some kind of work
which may be accomplished by the repetition of simple
movements, if his mind could be steadied to any employ-
ment. He delights in the company of street boys, who
joke, cheat, and abuse him. These tastes and habits edu-
cate him to boasting, lying, cruelty, artifice, jealousy, and
even to plotting robbery and arson, with a strong dose of
hatred for those who advise him to take a better course.
Later, these' moral depravities make a lodgment in his
brain, in the shape of false reminiscences or spurious images
of impossible facts ; he mistakes his best friend for his foe ;
does not feel safe; has seen eyes following him in the
night, or a suspicious light cross his room ; he heard
threats behind him ; he knows the fellow, and will break
his neck. The next we hear of him he will be in a prison,
or insane asylum, or involved by sharpers in a law-suit ;
to-day he is an imbecile, to-morrow he may be a criminal.

Supposing no omission, here are five classes of persons
confounded with idiots without reason, nor the excuse of
necessity. This confusion bears upon their position edu-
cationally, socially, and legally.
Four of the five classes above enumerated require, like
} idiots, the benefit of a physiological education ; and as
long as there is no provision made, especially for each, their
wholesale admission with idiots looks like a matter of
course, and is very much so, as far as philanthropy is con-
cerned. Even in respect to education proper, we are

IDIOCY. 11

inclined to think that the teaching part of the method is

calculated to do equal good to these unfortunate children.

But all is not teaching in our training. Deeper than the

exercises, than the lessons, than the incitations addressed

. . . .* .

to activity and intelligence, lies the foundation of the work —

in the moral training ; incessant influence, which is like the
spiritual atmosphere of a place of this kind, intended to cor-
respond to the wants, sympathies and resistances to be en-
countered in idiots. If we except the backward children,
the other classes require different and stronger moral agen-
cies to act upon them ; they need a moral training whose
character may be defined by establishing its situation mid-
way between that of Leuret for insane, and ours for idiots.
But if these children, uneducable in ordinary schools,
and unprovided with special ones, must be, for a time at
least, indiscriminately treated with idiots, this necessity
does not justify their confusion with them, nor the social
indifference. Many of them would improve, many more
would not have fallen into bad habits and criminal partner-
ship, if they had only received the attention bestowed on
ordinary children ; double dereliction, from which they and
society subsequently suffer. In this abandonment the
child with insane propensities loses sooner and more com-
pletely the balance of his judgment, or the control of his
passions ; the imbecile familiarizes himself with all sorts of.
eccentricities of the lowest order; the backward child
lapses into the solitary walks of the youth who avoids
company, to not be disturbed in his task of self-destruc-
tion ; and the idiot shuts himself up more and more in his
isolation. Hence, by a just return, society is occasionally

72 IDIOCY.

startled by deeds of horror committed, not so much by
these irresponsible beings as by those who neglected their
duties towards them. Even now, that State and National
institutions "have been founded for the improvement of
idiots, these children and the others above enumerated,
when sent out from their schools, some imperfectly im-
proved, some very little, some without means of support
or of starting in the world, some without friends or
family worth claiming, will be exposed to imminent dan^
gers to themselves and others, till asylums shall be pro-
vided for their refuge, not so much against their own vices
as against the incitations of vicious people.

The legal status of idiots relative to property is that of
minors, without reservation or attenuation for the kind, the
degree, the stage, the tendency of their infirmity. Cases
susceptible of improvement or not, cases of limited but
rational understanding, or of unsound reasoning and un-
grounded aspirations, are reduced by law to the same pre-
sent and future incapacity of possession and usage. It
seems unjust, now that idiots are improved, can work,
spare, behave more or less, to submit them to the same
legal incapacities which must rule the maniac who mistakes
gol(i for cinders, and vice versd, or the imbecile ready to
make a fortune out of incessant barterings in which he
means to cheat, and is himself cheated. The patrimony of
the child who may improve at some cost, must not be left
without control in the hands of persons interested in keep-
ing him incapable. In England the Sovereign, here the
Governor of the State is the guardian of the idiot. Evi-
dently this trust is too distant to be effective. The Governor

IDIOCY. 78

should delegate his guardian§)iip to the Superintendent of
the State institution, who is competent to advise about what
might be profitably expended for the improvement of the
•child, and what part of his property or income may be pro-
gressively intrusted to 4iim as, a means of learning the
management of his worldly affairs. Anything short of this
is unjus);, and leads to legal spoliation.

Their personal .rights are no more respected ; though,
under the steady improvement of their aspirations, idiots
are known to have bepome worthy of the blessings that
society offers and religion sanctifies.

Criminal legislation treats idiots yet worse. As we just
said, out of their institution nothing prevents them from
falling into the snares of bad company but their good
natural teindencies. But, if they succumb, tossed between
lawyers who hold them up as the lowest fellows, or the
most cunning of criminals, findings and judgments agree in
sending them where they cannot improve, but must grow
worse. Although kny kind of confusion is painful to the
mind, one might conceive that the dement might be
allowed to rot in the same place of confinement where the
maniac raves; but who could see without sorrow the idiot
sent, for an unconscious .or doubtful crime, where the
imbecile finds himself at home among men of his stamp,
instead of being sent to the institution where he might be
educated, or to an asylum where he might be protected
against bad influences, as the case might demand.

We can, therefore, already perceive that social and legal
exigencies, and the recent creation of schools for training
idiots, naturally lead to the complementary foundation of

74 IDIOCY.

asylums for such as have no family, or are only partially
improved. This asylum shall be a happy home for those
who could have no other, if its management be given as a
reward to those devoted women and men who have already
spent many years and turned white their young hairs at the
task of eSuoating idiois ; any other persons would perpetu-
ate in the new asylum the hard practices of the hospices
and the poor-houses.

But while we demand more social love, more legal pro-
tection, more home comforts for idiots to keep up with
the recent improvement, we must not forget that the insti-
tutions already founded for them, and the physiological
method of teaching, will shed more lustre on this century
than the institutions and methods for teaching deaf mutes
did on the last, if we are as conscious of our duties as we
are of those of society toward our children. lii their
name we have asked and received palaces, annuities, and
we may even say the incubation of their feeble capacities
from hundreds of devoted persons ; but are we sure that
we have understood our subject in all its grandeur, and
kept it on the high philosophical ground upon which it
can stand equally the test of criticism and of admiration ?

True, idiots have been improved, educated, and even
cured ; not one in a thousand has been entirely retractory
to treatment ; not one in a hundred who has not been made
more happy and healthy ; more than thirty per cent, have
been taught to conform to social and moral law, and
rendered capable of order, of good feeling, and of working
like the third of a man ; more than forty per cent, have
become capable of the ordinary transactions of life under

IDIOCY. 75

friendly control, of understanding moral and social abstrac-
tions, of working lik6 two-thirds of a man ; and twenty-five
to thirty per cent, come nearer and nearer to the standard of
manhood, till some of them will defy the scrutiny of good
judges when compared with ordinary young women and men.
But this success, honorable as it is, constitutes only one
of the objects to be attained as the honest return due to
society for the generous support afibrded to those who took
charge of the new establishments. If these were founded
for idiots, idiots seem permitted to exist and are expen-
sively gathered and treated, not only for their own wel-
fare, but for some social and scientific objects which dis-
close themselves, when we advance in the road of pro-
gress, as so many new duties for us to perform. Among
these raisons cPitre of idiocy, the most urgent, the most
neglected arises from the light to be thrown on all the
branches of anthropology by sound and complete obser-
vations of idiots from the cradle to the slab. But to this
day there is not one complete observation followed thus
far. This point we must reach. Being given children
whose condition prior to birth, in infancy, youth, and
manhood is perfectly established ; having studied the
deficiencies and the disorders of their functions, their
intellectual progress and physical development under a
physiological training, our love for them and their fel-
lows must follow them with scalpel and microscope
beyond life, to mark the peculiarities of their organs
as we have done those of their functions. It will be
impossible to collect and compare fifty such observa-
tions (and that would be about one for each institution

76 IBIOOT.

without being surrounded by new light on every important
point of human philosophy ; not only upon the questions
bearing directly on idiocy, but upon all human questions
pertaining to causality between organs and functions.
These questions vainly asked from commonplace subjects^
or from the sick or the insane, will be promptly answered
by the comparison of a few monographs of idiots. That
these exceptional children are better subjects, are in fact
nearly the only subjects fit for the study of the impending
questions of anthropology, will be readily admitted ; con-
sidering the relative sameness of the organs and of the
functions in ordinary subjects ; the alteration of organs-
rarely followed by corresponding alteratipns of functions
in the sick; the functional disorders not often accom-
panied by alteration of organs in the insane. And on
the other hand, considering that idiocy is not an accident
like illness or insanity, but a condition of infirmity as
settled as other permanent conditions of life; that it pre-
sents to our comparison all the elements of a norma,
whether we analyze the functions, whether we observe the
organs ; this correlative status of the organs and functions
in idiocy is at the same time so certain and so extreme that
it affords unequalled data to the student of comparative
biology.

Therefore, we set down as one of the most important
duties of the new institutions the production of these
monographs, which need not be numerous, but perfect.
These monographs are our debt of gratitude toward society,
which wants thenj to light, her steps onward ; toward idiots^
who will be benefited by a better comprehension of their

IDIOCY, 77

condition ; and toward the sciences accessory to anthro-
pology, which have never been furnished with so forcible
and stable elements of observation of human nature as
those accumulated under such circumstances; here, and
very likely nowhere else at the present hour, rest the
expectations of the inquirer.

But since twenty years, this part of the labor has been
left aside for the more urgent object of founding the new
institutions on a solid basis. Now everything is ready
for the triple work of improving idiots, of studying human
nature from its lowest to its highest manifestations ; and
of testing on idiots the true physiological means of elevat-
ing mankind by education, which will be the object of
the following pages.

PART n.-PHYSIOlOGICAL EDUCATION.

Fart II.

PHYSIOLO©ICAIi EDUCATION.

Idiots could not be educated by fhe metTioas, nor cured
by the treatments practised prior to 1837 ; but most idiots,
and children proximate to them, may be relieved in a more
or less complete measure ot their disabilities by the
physiological method of education.

This method, object of the present exposition, consists
in the adaptation of the principles of physiology, through
physiological means and instruments, to the development
of the dynamic, perceptive, reflective, and spontaneous
functions of youth.

The principles are not the method, the means, and instru-
ments neither ; but the co-action of both constitutes the
method of education contrived for idiots and already appre-
ciated as "an example worthy of imitation, of the alliance
of the moral and physical sciences." *

Therefore, the lessons of the Hospitals of the Incurables
and of Bic^tre, of the schools at Boston and Syracuse,
have not been given through the idiots in vain, Yisitors
came in, and every one carried away some of the principles
or instruments used there, according to the . chances of a
daily practice. Seeing this, physicians could no longer
write on diseaises of children without expatiating on moral

* *Ba,pport de MM. Serres, iFlovirens et FaTiset,'^ I'Acad^mie des Sciences.
Paris.

82 IDIOCY.

or functional treatment, nor teachers go back to their
schools without carrying with them some of our sensorial
gymnastics, imitation exercises, etc. In all this, truly the
idiots were the doctors and the teachers. They taught as
much as could be seen and understood in a visit; they
taught, besides, that idiots are not the repulsive beings that
our neglect made them, and that any land would be blessed
where women and men would devote themselves to the
task of elevating these unfortunates. Hence, institutions
for their education have sprung up everywhere, and the
physiological method was scattered piecemeal in every edu-
cational establishment.

This mode of spreading a system, by breaking it up as
soon as formed, if not flattering to inventors, seems to be
quite a favorite process of civilization. J. E. Pereire, after
teaching for forty years the deaf to speak, saw his method
reduced to mimic language and mutism. J. J.Eousseau
did not hear bestowed upon the writings of J. P. Eichter
and the school of Pestalozzi, the encomiums deserved by his
own Emile. Amoros had hardly given the last touch to his
compendium of gymnastics than he saw it broken in frag-
ments by the limited comprehension of his own admirers.
Itard had no knowledge of the application of his object-
lessons to the Savage of Aveyron by the Home and Colo-
nial Society. Jacotot assisted at the apparent burial of his
synthetical teaching of reading by words first, which
teaching has been revived so successfully by Dr. Wilbur.
So the onward movement takes place, through other oscU-
lEttory movements, by ebb and flow ; and progress is
accomplished even by apparent retrogradation. In this

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 83

wise the truncated application to public schools of the
physiogical method of training has made, henceforth, its
total application an unavoidable necessity ; and its more
comprehensive employment in several institutions has en-
riched it with many new devices, derived from the principle,
by practical ingenuity. Though such a transitory season is
not very favorable to the reassertion of the fundamental
principles, it is the very time when we need it most.

Our method, to be really physiological, must adapt itself
in principles as well as in its means and instruments, to the
healthy development and usage of the functions, particu-
larly of those of the life of relation : the apposition to be
true must leave no gap, suffer no discrepancy. Man being
a unit, is artificially anS,lyzed, for study's sake, into his
three prominent vital expressions, activity, intelligence,
and will. We consider the idiot as a man infirm in the
expressions of his trinity ; and we understand the method
of training idiots, or mankind, as the philosophical agency
by which the unity of manhood can be reached as far as
practicable in our day, through the trinary analysis.

According to this Trinitarian hypothesis, we shall have
to educate the activity, the intelligence, the will, three func-
tions of the unit man, not three entities antagonistic one to
the other. We shall have to educate them, not with a serial
object in view (favorite theory of A. Comte), but with a
sense of their unity in the one being.

Activity, besides its unconscious and organic functions,
divides into contractility and sensibility, with their specific
tendencies ; Intelligence branches into many sub-functions,
and Wili into its protean expressions, from love to hatred.

84 ■ IDIOCY.

The predominance of any of tliese functions constitutes
a disease ; their perversion leads to insanity ; their notable
deficiency at birth constitutes idiocy, afterwards imbecility,
later yet dementia.

Physiological education, including hygienic and moral
training, restores the harmony of these functions in the
young, as far as practicable, separating them abstractedly,
to restore them practically in their unity.

This is the psycho-physiological principle of the method.

Before deducing its applications for the treatment of
idiocy, we must see how it may be made available for its
prevention.

Like most maladies and infirmities idiocy may, to a great
extent, be prevented.

When dependent on local and hereditary causes, the
prevention follows, as a matter of course, the avoidance of
such conditions. Already, in the Alps, many pregnant
women migriite from the valleys to the uplands ; the open-
ing of routes in these long secluded localities permits their
population to marry outside of their blood-relations, thereby
sensibly diminishing cretinism and idiocy.

But idiocy is not all endemic or hereditary. We have
seen it creep out from the couch of the young, of the
healthy, of the talented, as well as from that of the lowly
or of the vicious. Young men and women qualify for all
sorts of social and scientific attainments, and disqualify
themselves for the task which ranks us with the gods. In
one class, the privations are suffered particularly by girls
and newly married couples; in other classes stimulants
of all kinds are used nearly from infancy, instead of being

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION". 85

kept as the solaces of old age. Intellectual or business
excitement has taken possession of both sexes ; a young
woman with child has to contend with social difficulties, as
if she were not engaged in a labor which requires all the
resources of her constitution, supposing she has any.
These exactions, of food from the ill-fed, of strength from
the weak, of innervation from the enervated, in favor of the
future being, do not seem rational, and are too often fol-
lowed by the ruin of the mother's health, and by the moral
or physical crippling of her child. How' much more sen-
sible it would be for young couples to try to live according
to hygienic rules, to keep the pregnknt woman in comforta-
ble conditions, without anxiety, with an abundance of sub-
stantial food, with air for two, day and night, and with
plenty of exercise, sooner than to act as if relying upon
the wisdom of the embryo to feed' himself out of no food,
and to keep himself unmoved amidst the emotions of his
oiother. This is not to say that idiocy depends exclu-
sively upon voluntary circumstances ; some accidents may
be prevented, some not. Hereditary affections and ner-
vous disorders transmissible in some mutable form, ac-
cessory diseases accompanying pregnancy and destroying
the powers of nutrition, such as disordered appetite for
unnutritious food and drink, vomiting, costiveness, etc.,
cannot always be counteracted by professional interfer-
ence ; but in such cases the skill to correct disorderfed
functions, to prevent steady impressions and sudden
shocks, is the highest attainment of our art.

The new-born infant escapes the dangers of intra-ute-
rine life, to enter into another crisis of its development.

86 IDIOCY.

The withering of the cord, and the maturing- of the breast,
declare the new relations of nutrition between mother
and child ; but this sudden change is fraught with dan-
ger. To^ this change, and to the transition from a liquid
to a gaseous medium, is attributable the loss of sub-
stance, of weight, and of caloric,, suffered by the child in
the first week ; deficiency of nutrition from these causes
producing convulsions, idiocy, and death. We can pre-
vent these accidents by a proper control over the internal
and external means of keeping up the warmth. Besides,
at that time, the brain is soft, almost pulpy ; has a reddish
tint throughout, without well marked differences between
the white and grey substance, nor well defined circumvo-
lutions ; the nerves only being firmer, the general or
tactile sensibility precedes all others. Hence, in early
youth, and particularly at the time when the body of
the new-born actually loses weight, caloric, and sub-
stance, if it takes nourishment, this is mostly applied to
the consolidation and distinction of the two substances
composing the encephalon. But if this nerve-food is not
timely supplied to the infant, it becomes idiotic, epileptic,
paralytic, or hydrocephalous, whatever may have been
the cause of the deficiency of nutrition.

This efi'ect of the want of nutrition is not peculiar to
the nervous system ; it rules the growth of all the other
systems, and develops nearly all of the constitutional
affections of childhood. We can trace the beginning of
diseases of the long bones, of the spine, of the circulatory
and respiratory apparatus, etc., to that same cause, de-
ficiency of nutrition at the very time when each of these

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION-. 87

organs required the most effective nourishment. This
explains why each of these constitutional alterations must
be expected at certain periods of life, idiocy at first,
rickets, phthisis next, etc., till dementia and paralysis
close the series. Thus, deficiency of nutrition bears al-
ternately upon the apparatus whose growth or temporary
activity requires the most nutriment. This law traces
our duty to the new-born infant.

The health of the mother, her labors, inactivity, food,
drink, aeration, comfort, happiness, having a direct bear-
ing upon the state of her milk, and her milk upon the
nutrition of the infant, call our attention before every-
thing else ; because, owing to the want of expression of
the passive little being in the first weeks of life, irrepa-
rable mischief may be worked by bad food, before one
could be made aware of it.

Next in importance comes the watching of the defi-
cient abilities of the child, and particularly the distinc-
tion of their constitutional and external causes ; many
infants look like idiots, or bid fair to become such, who
are only crippled by something or somebody, and many
idiots continue for months their marmot-like life, who
are thought only dull babies.

At this stage of life, where all the impotencies of
babyhood do not differ from incapacitation by infirmi-
ties, the difference may be established only by reference
to the age appointed by nature for the evolution of
each function. Among the first, extending the arm,
opening the hand, grxsping, is a series ; looking, turning
the head upon the axis, raising the spine to the sitting

88 IDIOCY.

posture, is another ; hearing roices, listening to catch
sounds, reproducing them to amuse the organs of audi-
tion, is another of the endless groups of capabilities
which spring up, one aft^r another, and which are so
long or vainly expected from idiots.

"Who could watch over the tardy coming of these
functions better than a mother,, if she were timely ad-
vised by a competent physician ? The skill of the latter is
of no avail without her vigilance, and her zeal may be
very blind, even mischievous indeed, without his advice ;
stuttering, squinting, and all sorts of bodily defects, be-
sides the perpetuation of the worst symptoms of early
idiocy, are too often due to the want of this concerted
action of love and knowledge.

As soon as any function is set down as deficient at its
due time of development, the cause must be sought and
combated ; if external, removed ; if seated in the nervous
apparatus, counteracted by the earliest course of training
and hygienic measures., The arm of the mother or nurse
becomes a swing or a supporter ; her hand a monitor or a
compressor ; her eye a stimulant or a director of the dis-
tracted look ; the cradle is converted into a class-room,
gymnasium, etc.

If the features of idiocy are decidedly marked, the
mother must often visit with her child the nearest institu-
tion, see what is done there to remedy similar cases, and
receive the instructions necessary to carry on the same
treatment at home. If this prove costly at first, even to
the State Institution, it will in the end save the State and
families the expense of several years of after-teaching.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATIOK. 89

besides accomplishing more fully the object of the treat-
ment.

In this manner, when the time arrives for admission
into the school, the child feels at home among the exer-
cises, pleased by the general activity, music, and amuse-
ment of the place ; has no resistance nor antipathies to
what it has seen from infancy, and cannot fall at its en-
trance into the position of a stranger, subject to nostalgia
and its consequences.

This double and alternate education of the infant-idiot
at home and by contact with the school, brings us closer
to the method of physiological training.

That child, going through the institution at first on the
arm of its mother, soon feels the' influence of the general
training, even in hia apparent inattention, and is thereby
better prepared ta be individually carried through the'
same movements. Home again, and in the silenca of
privacy, the child's attention will be more easily concenr
trated upon some of the facts or actions whose outlines.
are yet faintly delineated in its sensorium, at the Sfjroe
time that its resistance to fresh contact is lessened;; the
double result is new perception and increased spontanei-
ty, oscillatory strides from the general to tine special,
and vice versd, towards the completion of its pjeraeptive^
reflective, and spontaneous faculties.

These alternate reactions of the perceptions on spon-
taneity, of the will on reflective agencies,, is, the mod/us
operandi of the physiological pi'ocess of education for
idots, for children, for mankind. They take place in the

terminal loops or plexuses which ai'e ec^ter^^d in the

6

90 IDIOCY.

integuments like so many peripheric brains ; in the sen-
sorial and motor ganglia ; in the intellectual ganglia or
hemispheres. Through the conductors of motion and sen-
sation, the central and generalizing organ receives the
external impulse, and transmits its orders to each appa-
ratus of action.

Tliis double current forms a functional circle which
cannot be interrupted without being destroyed. Take
away one of these currents, and instead of causing a
complete action, we have only the beginning of one.
Whether images are sent from acute senses to an encepha-
lon which cannot register, compare, or classify them, or
whether centrifugal aspirations cannot be realized by
dead or dead-like apparatus of transmission and con-
tact ; in both cases, opposite as they are, the result is
the same — isolation, incapacitation. So, fine senses and
good muscular development, if the will has no command
upon tljem, cai^not respectively feel nor do anything
more than if they were paralyzed ; and leave the child
impotent, with all the instruments of potency less the
central one. And in the same manner, an active encepha-
lon deprived of important means of communication with
the world, or of means of sensorial analysis, may create
superficial idiocy, whether the isolation comes from gene-
ral paralysis, or from the loss of one sense only, or from
the loss of several.

Now let teaching do, at large for mankind, what in-
firmity does for idiots and their congeners ; let perceptions
be sunk in a central organ unprepared to generalize and
fecundate them ; or let the generalizing agent be sent,

PHYSIOLO&ICAL EDUCATION. 91

through its spontaneous impulses to external Organs un-
prepared for movement or for the correct perception of
feelings, and the result will be at least a lowering of human
capacity ; but let idiots be taught by either of these half
teachings, through one-half only of the psycho-physio-
logical circulus, and you may well set down their im-
provement as impossible, since in this wise you want
to improve them by the very process which would make
them idiots, if they were not such already. This cannot
be too much insisted upon, that whatever development
be given to the sensorial faculties, the reflective and
spontaneous must receive a corresponding culture, and
viae versd.

Exclusive memory exercises do not actually improve
idiots ; rather the revei'se : they impede their future pro-
gress. Better one thing thoroughly known than a hun-
dred only remembered. Teaching so many facts is not
so fruitful as teaching how to find the relations between
a single one and its natural properties and connexions.

Conversely, protracted tension of the will and reason
upon unsubstantial objects and purposes, if it would be
futile in the case of idiots, does favor in other schools the
production of monomania and hallucinations, even en-
demically. The avoidance of these exclusive practices,
reduced even into theory by certain teachers, will insure
the unity of training so important to our success.

Therefore the teaching of a geometrical point must not
make us forgetful of the line to which this point belongs ;
the line, of the body it limits ; the body, of its accessory
properties ; the properties, of the possible associations of

92 IDIOCY.

the subject under consideration, with its surroundings:
an idea is not an isolated image of one thing, but the
representation in a unit of all the facts related to the
imaged object.

The completeness of the method to be used is of the
utmost importance, and must be enforced as well in re-
gard to the object of the teaching as to the unity of the
child. But before beginning our close adaptation of the
whole training to the whole child, we must make sure
of the fitness of the latter for it. We must not put an
idiot to work or to study before ascertaining every morn-
ing his condition. A friendly look at his face and a
shake of the hand, a patting of the head, if necessary ex-
tended to the temples and posterior base of the cranium,
will tell if anything be the matter, and if you have to ex-
tend, your investigations farther. With idiots the ques-
tioning by palpation is the surest ; ask the difi"erent or-
gans, and they will tell you how the child feels, better
than himself, better than his nurse. We must not per-
mit any dejections to go unnoticed, unless we want at
some time dysentery and the like to run wild through
our wards.

The same attention is required if any inflammation of
the eyes appears, possible initiator to purulent conjunc-
tivitis. The spread of any parasitic disease is to be cut
short with the same vigilance. The health of the feet
and hands has to be often ascertained, particularly in
winter.

In dressing the children we must have regard not only
to the season, but mostly to the sudden changes of tem-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 93

perature, and to certain idiosyncrasies. Dress them as
you like in regard to fashion, but comfortably and easily
about the joints and chest, so that they can move and
grow.

We must not send a child to study or duty without
his having taken food. The staple food for these chil-
dren is milk, bread, eggs, and ripe, red fruits ; meat once
a day is enough. But every day or every week brings
new demands on account of changes of season and tem-
perature, of personal health, or of imminent epidemics ;
and also because variety is of itself food.

The nutrition of idiots is to be attended to closely, if
we do not want to see them, or part of them, decay.

We must not begin their day's work like a duty, but
like a pleasure, with walks, sports, music, and end it
in the same manner; so that if we have not made them
perfectly happy through our daily routine, we can send
them to bed cheerful.

After the morning music, the first labors are those in
which the most of attention may be exacted, and true
learning gained. At later hours, more is to be derived
from excitement than from concentration of mind.

When teaching a new object, we must not too often put
our point forward, but on the contrary put it behind
something well known, as a corollary to what was pre-
viously acquired, an unavoidable deduction, an of
course. If we let the child feel that the ground is new,
he will recoil ; if we do not, he will think himself on the
old one, and go ahead without increased diffidence.

In this direction there is a mark to which we can carrv

94 IDIOCY.

our pupil forward ; let us appreciate it. If we leave
him below that mark he loses the opportunity to reach it,
perhaps for ever, dispositions of mind never coming back
identical in presence of the same facts ; and if we try to
push him farther than his attention can support him, the
whole acquisition may fall " in a pie." Therefore when
any tension of the muscles, senses, or mind has attained
its object, let us remove the pressure gently, for fear that
a prolonged tightness ^ould undo the deed or deface the
impression dearly acquired.

"When we exact from a child, in this manner, what he
can only do with the help of our physiological artifices,
we should study his features and see that he is not over-
come instead of being raised by the process ; we must
beware of protracting the tension till his countenance
shall give the signs of mental depression, as knitted
brows, blank looks, white circle around the mouth, de-
jected posture; if we have been so far unmindful in our
eagerness, let us hasten to take him off gayly to some
pleasant exercises or music, remembering that we were
at fault.

Though the idiot has much to learn, new things and
studies must be dealt oat sparingly to him, taking in con-
sideration for the nature as well as for the quantity of
work exacted, the heat, the cold, the dampness, all • ex-
ternal reagents on the nervous system. Spring and fall
are the times to push a child forward ; winter and sum-
mer to inure him to excesses of temperature.

Let it be one of our first duties to correct the automa-
tic motions, and supply the deficiencies of the muscu-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 95

lar apparatus ; otherwise^ how could we expect to ripen a
crop of intellectual faculties on a field obstructed by dis-
ordered functions.

"We must teach every day the nearest thing to that
which each child knows or can know.

We must never confide to automatic memory what
can be learned by comparison, nor teach a thing without
its natural correlations and generalizations ; otherwise
we give a false or incomplete idea, or none, but a dry
notion with a name : what enters the mind alone, dies in
it alone ; loneliness does not germinate anything. The
contact of two perceptions produces an idea ; the con-
tact of a perception with an idea produces a deductive
idea ; the contact of two or more ideas with each other
gives rise to both induction and deduction, and ideas of
an abstract order.

Contrast is a power.; children will understand, and do
by apposition of difi'erences what they could not by sin-
gle presentation, or by apposition of similarities, In
other cases, the reverse proves successful ; similarity is a
power, too.

"We must make the contrast not only an instrument of
learning, but one of rest and repose. To that effect,
things dissimilar are to be taught in apposition ; an exer-
cise through the eye, to be followed by one through the
fingers ; sitting, by standing ; attentive silence, hj emis-
sion of voice ; doing this we give food to the mind as
well as rest by variety, if our variety has a physiological
and intellectual meaning.

Kepetitions please children ; as rhythm and rhyme are

96 IDIOCY.

the lullaby of nations, we must take advantage of them
in teaching the speech and in the general training.

Training is understood to be special and general.
' 1st. In relation to the matters learned ; 2d, to the
number of children taught ; they must alternate. An
exercise of analysis is followed by one of synthesis, an in-
dividual teaching is followed by a group teaching. The
same thing has to pass by the double process of teaching,
as the same child has to pass through the single and
group learning : Everything taught and every function
trained by^impression and by expression. In this manner,
what has come into the mind has to come out of the
mind, and what was perceived by the attention of one
isolated child, has to be expressed through the impulse
of a whole group by those composing it. The general
impulse- gives a better comprehension to the individual,
the individual comprehension gives a stronger impulse
to the spontaneity of the groups.

For the same purpose children have to be as soon as
practicable taught and teachers alternately ; not for the
value of what they teach (though children often make
children understand better than we can), but because the
child employed to teach another learns more himself
than his would-be pupil, as well upon matters of fact as
by exercising his nascent power of command.

Our instruments of teaching must be those which go
directly to the point. In view of that necessity, we must
use objects, pictures, photographs, cards, patterns, fig-
ures, wax, clay, scissors, compasses, glasses, pencils, col-
ors, even books.

vPHTSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 97

Let U8 carry all our exercises through pure air, and
never- command in-doors what can be accomplished
without.

We must not forget to create gaiety and mirth several
times a day ; happiness is our object as much, nay more
than progress, and children will not be sick if they laugh.

"We reserve for another part the exposition of the prin-
ciples involved in the moral training ; it would be more
philosophical to emit the whole of them at once, but for
the sake of clearness we divide once more in theory
what must be a unit in practice, the physiological
training.

Training and education begin where previous functions
and acquirements ceased. The beginning of the treat-
ment of each child is where his natural progress stood
still ; so many children, so' many beginnings. For every
function or capacity the start varies as much. Such a
child uses one series of organs to a certain extent, and
other series to a lower or higher point. One child is
forward in talking, and backward in the use of his sight ;
another forward in imitation, and backward in compari-
son, etc., etc. From these discrepancies in the range of
the diverse functions in different individuals, result the
necessity of presenting the means and instruments em-
ployed in improving so many backward functions, as if
all the anomalies belonging to idiocy and its congeners
could really be found to the same degree in all idiots.
The mind of the reader can easily make its M-ay through
the fallacies of this unavoidable generalization.

Our system of education is the process of accumulating

98 , IDIOCY.

in claildren strength and knowledge ; to create in men
power and goodness.

The first want of a people and of an individual is
strength acquired by proper training of their muscular
system. The nations that flourished did so after or
during long exertions, whilst, on the other hand, the
clans that decayed by cretinism or otherwise, were shut
up in inaccessible valleys. Of all the incapacities of
idiocy, none are so striking and none so detrimental as
those which aflect motion and locomotion ; their direct
effect being to prevent the development of force, their
secondary result to prevent the reaching of any instru-
ment of knowledge.

The deficiencies and the anomalies of motion are ex-
tremely varied in idiots, from nearly absolute immobility
to the ineflSciency of the extremity of the fingers, or to
a slight swinging of the body in walk or station. Both
deficiencies and anomalies, deep or superficial, are the
subjects of the education of the muscular system.

(We warn the reader, for the last time, against the
fallacy of the words we employ, because they are not
adequate in comprehension to our .meaning. Here, for
instance, it is impossible to take hold of the muscular ap-
paratus without acting on the nerves, bones, etc., as it is
equally impossible to command these special instruments
of activity without exercising besides a reflex action on
the intellect and on the will. Therefore it shall be un-
derstood that we mean only that our action shall be
mostly aimed at one set of organs — for instance, those
of motility now. So much for our infirmity of expression.)

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 99

Our Gymnasium differs from the ordinary one in its
general object, being intended to create an equilibrium
of the functions, not by the towering of the muscular
above the other systems, but, on the contrary, by paying
more attention to the nervous, as being the most shattered
in idiocy. But even with these reservations in favor of
the general training, we confide mostly in the exercises
borrowed from the daily labors and amusements common
to all children. The spade, the wheelbarrow, the water-
ing-pot, the bow, the wooden-horse, the hammer, the
ball, are greater favorites with us than the general gym-
nastics whose instruments are to be employed sparingly,
and whose tendencies to exaggeration are to be avoided.
Tlie Grecians were using it to excess, for which Plato
reprimands them, as well as for the other excesses in
over-cultivating the intellectual faculties — the former
making prize-fighters, the latter sophists. Nothing is so
much to be discountenanced as this one-sided education.

In our case no excuse could be proffered to palliate a
similar mistake, because we aim at a plain, comprehen-
sive, harmonious training of the whole child. Our gym-
nastics, in its generality, is simple, managed with few
instruments, and mostly of the kind which received,
several years after it was adapted to idiots, the pretty
name of Calisthenics, under which it entered the fashion-
able academies. Our special gymnastics is by far more
important, on account of its adaptation to the deficiencies
of functions and of organs, by the correction of which it
touches to orthopedy, and to orthophreny. Though the
instruments of both these gymnastics are few and unos-

100 IDIOCY.

tentatious, whilst our intellectual means of exercise are
many, that disproportion is right, and pleases us as
precisely representing the proportion of the elements of
muscular training necessary for our main object, the in-
tellectualization of the muscles.

The absolute or complete abolition of the movements
of relation dependent on the absence of the im-
pulse of the enceplialon, and leaving to the idiot
only the involuntary contractions of organic life,
dependent on good spinal and sympathetic system,
must not be hastily attributed to paralysis. No
doubt there are idiots paralyzed, but their immobility
is more a cause than an effect of idiocy. On the con-
trary, the incapacity of movement here considered is a
psycho-physiological phenomenon, whose incomplete ana-
logue is found in the condition of a child who, having
been kept in bed for months, tries to walk. He attempts
to transmit the orders of his will to the distant organs of
locomotion, but in vain, till his mother forwards his foot
and teaches the nerves and muscles the lost art of walk-
ing. The idiot does not learn to walk so fast as this conva-
lescent child, for several reasons : He never did walk, his
immobility has lasted all his life instead of a few months,
and we must create" in him the desire that he never had
of walking; and second, his will, far from being ready to
command anything, has never yet suspected nor tried its
wonderful powers.

Infantile paralysis, even complicated with extensive
contractures and chorea, as it is often, is not necessarily
beyond the resources of our art. As means of treatment

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 101

we would suggest general and special nutrition of the
affected limbs, general and special excitors of heat and
electricity, general and special gymnastics, sea-bathing,
shampooing, kneading the parts, commanding, exacting
the movements, and a few select medicinal agents unne-
cessary to suggest to confreres.

We meet more frequently with the partial loss of move-
ment expressed by the fixedness of the child where and
as he is placed, standing, lying, seated any way, or by
the impossibility of his hands taking hold of anything, even
carrying food to the mouth ; he is immovable of his own
will, movable ouly by another's as by an external spring.

This relative immovability of the idiot, of the demented,
too, the result of inertia, has no parentage whatever with
the immobility by which a man or an, animal assembles his
forces to throw them into action ; this is a positive, the
other a negative attitude. From positive immobility
springs an active determination ; in negative immovabi-
lity resides the power to nearly neutralize any external
inducement or any internal motive to action. This im-
movability is therefore the first expression we meet with
of the radical elements of idiocy, the negative will.
Henceforth we shall find many and the most varied in-
capacities, all doubled, made nearly indomitable by the si-
lent protean " I will not " of the negative will. Impossible
now to forget it, and whenever found it has to be treated,
as we will do presently, where it would perpetuate, with
incapacity of motion, the whole train of idiocy.

But we are often prevented from at once overcoming
this obstacle by the interposition of another already men-

102 IDIOCY.

tioned, under the head of automatic, mechanical or spas-
modic motions. As long as these motions exist with or
without negative immohility of the rest of the body, we
cannot expect to see the child improve in willed action
nor in active immohility; therefore it is our duty to try
to overcome it all at once when we can, or as soon as
possible.

These anomalous movements have their seat, not al-
ways, but mostly in the wrist and fingers. We have
described their various characters, and shall say no more
here than is necessary to the rationale of their treatment.
In automatic movements, the child uses one part of him-
self, one finger or one eye, as if it were an automaton
whose recurrent movements produced his beatitude. In
mechanical movements the child uses, besides paper,
thread, metals, anything whose breaking, touching, ring-
ing, pleases exclusively One of his senses ; not the best-
on the contrary, the most diseased. In spasmodic move-
ments the child has no object, or if he has any, such as
striking something or at somebody, it is prompted by a
blind, sickly impulse.

Each of these movements is best combated by exer-
cises which oflFer the strongest contrast to the bad habit.
Automatism is best done away with by constant em-
ployment of the general forces; mechanism, by the intel-
ligent occupation of the delinquent parts and the avoid-
ance of the things worked at mechanically ; spasmodism,
by raising obstacles, the painful contact of which will
cause recollections suflScient to prevent its recurrence.
But if each of these disorders of contractility recedes be-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION 103

fore the employment of particular means, they disappear
only under its steady continuance, corroborated by the
long application of moral training. Nevertheless, we
must expect, and may reasonably promise to cure the
mechanical sooner than the automatic or spasmodic mo-
tions : the latter being generally subordinate to an acces-
sory disease, variation of the choreic type.

Happily the exercises undertaken in view of destroying
the disordered motions, may be at the same time calcu-
lated to promote willed immobility and orderly move-
ments; consequently, both objects may be attained at
once, and described at the same time.

Setting aside these muscular disorders we find ourselves
in presence of the whole cortege of muscular incapacities
incumbent on idiocy, every one of them presenting its
claim to our care as foremost. Attending to one would
be as neglecting the others, or like treating one symptom
to the exclusion of others, disregarding the disease itself
in its unity. In our case, for instance, every particular
incapacity of the legs, fingers, etc., is subordinate to the
impotence of the general activity ; we will not, therefore,
pause on the threshold to look at the inefficiency of a
single part, but consider the incapacity of the whole
motor function.

Muscular activity is a function accomplished by the
contraction and relaxation of the muscular elements ;
movement taking its fulcrum in immobility. Therefore,
before and simultaneously with, directing the training
towards the acquisition df some special movement, we
must accumulate its greater energy in view of the con-

104 IDIOCY.

centration of activity into positive immobility, wherefrora
all action springs. Immobility is taught in various atti-
tudes—standing, sitting, reclining one way or another, on
some gymnastic apparatus, with the rifle, the dumb-bells,
the balancing-pole, etc., according to the obstacles which
are to be encountered, and the various stages of the train-
ing ; example :

If the immobility of the whole child cannot be enforced
at once, we may seat him before us, half mastering his
legs between our knees, concentrate all our attention upon
the hands, and eventually upon the one most aff'ected.
To accomplish our abject we put the quietest hand on the
corresponding knee, whilst we load the delinquent hand
with a heavy dumb-bell. Useless to say that he does not
take hold of it and tries to disengage his hand ; but our
fingers keep his so bound around the neck of the dumb-
bell that he does not succeed. On the contrary, we
take care to let the weight fall more on his hand than
on ours ; if he does not carry it, he supports it at least.
Supporting the burden, the more he moves to remove it
the more he feels it ; and partly to escape the increase of
the burden, partly by fatigue, his loaded hand becomes
still ; that stillness was precisely our object.

When we find that hand temporarily subdued, we re-
lieve it from the dumb-bell, and venture to set it free op-
posite the other hand, and to maintain it motionless by
the combined action of our voice, looks, and gesture.
After a few such sessions of alternate loading and rest-
ing we generally succeed in keeping the hand quiet
enough for the simplest employment ; if not, by looking.

PHTSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 105-

carefully, we will find that the remaining impediment to ,
the usefulness of the limb lies in some extra delicacy of the
sense of touch, which happily may be blunted by the use
of the balancing-pole and a series of exercises of resistance ;
but this is part of the sensorial training. The case presented
here is one in which partial immobility jv^as the promi-
nent aim ; conversely in another case, immobility shall
be secondary, and movement the principal object, as when
we keep the whole body quite motionless to concentrate
the attention upon delicate exercises of a single part.
But we cannot forget that our final object is to teach com-
plete immobility ; and to come to it no pains, no time
must be spared, because our reward will be the harmony
and usefulness of all the subsequent movements.

As immobility is in nature the fulcrum of movement,
so in our training it will precede and close every exer-
cise, and serve as transition and as repose between the
various modes of active training;, so, at this very junc-
ture, the child will be submitted simultaneously to
passive exercises, to intrinsic and relative immobility and
to movements necessary to learn walking, all of them
transitions and reposes coming alternately.

If we take the child so low that he cannot and will not
move, seated like an inert mass upon his chair, we must
move him ourselves.. To that eflPect we employ instru-
ments of passive exercise, which act on activity nearly
like personal impalses. The legs do not bend, we make
them yield under the elasticity of a baby-jumper; the
feet do not come forward for the walk, let them encoun-
ter with the regularity of a walk a spring-board, which

7

106 IDIOCY.

receives and sends them back like an intelligent, indefa-
tigable ground would do. Kneading the muscles, han-
dling the articulations, moving with the floor of a tread-
mill, and like appliances, will give the pupil the muscu-
lar strength to walk ; but he will not walk yet, and we
make him resume in immobility the seated posture a little
longer.

But, after all our passive exercises, he cannot yet stand
erect and ready for a walk on a level floor. Then we
raise him on two blocks or steps as narrow as his feet,
and even we let him fall, being at hand to prevent an
injury, but not to blunt the emotion, and to restore him,
if needed, to his up-isolation. There he must stand, and
stand firmly too, having to react with an energy unknown
to himself against the vacuum around, which invites him
to a. fall. To resist the attraction of the void, he must
strain his muscles in readiness for any emergency ; he is
anxious, he does not know exactly why, nor what to do,
nor what not to do ; but his strength is gathered, and if
we have in front of him some other steps, and if we help
him a little with our hand or finger at first, he will try,
in the prospect of escaping the isolation, to pass one
foot on the next step, on another, and on another,
anxious, crying, but walking in fact for the first time.
Left on a floor, he would have slid his feet very likely,
but not walked all his life. He walks now, but with a
swinging of the body, owing to the incapacity of the
hands.

Prior to any education, the hands hang like impedi-
ments, if not brandished upwards by automatism, im-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION". 107

pressing their disharmony upon the rest of the body.
This being almost always the case with onr children, we
cannot improV^e their walk or station without improving
the_ hands and arms, at least as instruments of equili-
brium. Here, once more, we must do two things at a
time if we want to succeed in one. This improvement
of the hands and arms, as adjuvants to the general equi-
librium of the body, is accomplished by the exercises
which improve them for their direct functions, and which
will be treated of hereafter. When this is done, we have
brought these organs to the fulfilment of their simplest
functions, and we are now called to bring the function to
the point where it becomes a capacity, being governed by
comparisons and reasonings.

When both walk and equilibrium are acquired, but
imperfectly, the movements of progression are yet found
counteracted by lateral swinging, which gives to the walk
of an idiot its peculiar character ; this is the point where
we find the nlajority of them ; this is the walk which
bespeaks idiocy ; this betraying incapacity deserves and
costs a good deal of attention. The walk of the legs and
the equilibrium through the arms have to undergo cor-
rections alternately, alone and together ; one first and
foremost to-day, the other preeminently to-morrow. Here
two kinds of exercises are indicated : first, those which
bear upon the legs, and those that bear upon the arms ;.
secondly, those that harmonize the complete functions.
Among the first acting on the legs are the stairs of va-
rious grades, and the horizontal ladder, between the
rounds of which the child has to walk. Acting on the

108 IDIOCY.

arms are the dumb-bells, the Swedish or other clubs, and
the various extensions of the arm, which is of itself a
natural balancing-pole. The second is composed of the
aggregation on a small space, like a room or a piece of
shaded turf, of all the planes, horizontal, inclined in the
four directions, abruptly cut, rough, stony, slippery, nar-
row, etc., which could present themselves as ordinary im-
pediments to regular progression. The child must go
through these difficulties with or without dumb-bells,
steadily commanded, or urged by the excitement of
music.

Besides, rooms are to be extemporaneously prepared,
in which we have foot-prints or forms spread on the floor ;
some near, some far apart ; some with the point turned
in, and some out ; winding in some unexpected way, that
the child has to follow, covering exactly with his feet the
forms spread before him; The act of directing each foot
on each form is one of the best exercises for limbs which
have previously escaped all control ; but what a superior
exercise it is for the head above, which has never sus-
pected its regulating power : to walk among so many
difficulties is to think.

A child has to go through many impediments of the
kind, some easy enough, some difficult to overcome, rep-
resenting not only to the legs, but to the mind, so many
intellectual problems, so that to go through this series of
obstacles, is to go through a complete practical treatise
on the physiology of walking and standing. When the
pupil has ovei'come individually these difficulties, with
all his attention helped by all the energy of the teacher,

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 109

he may be allowed to repeat these lessons, but not by
memory alone. He is to be thrown in a stream of chil-
dren who execute" the same exercises on a large scale,
with the excitement of example and music ; and the pre-
vious tears are dried, tumbles are laughed at, torpor dis-
appears before emulation, timorousness before charming
little braveries ; the first rays of promise have pierced
through the darkness of idiocy. These children could
. not move of late, and to-day they are in their first well-
earned perspiration ; do not let them catch cold, particu-
larly in the moral Sense.

Now our pupil can stand, walk, and move, to a certain
extent in conformity with the physiology of his organs,
provided he is willing to do it. But no ; he does these
things when compelled or bidden, and almost never of
his own impulse. Here, consequently, we see laid bare
in him the antagonism between his negative or collapsed
will, and the synergic will wherefrom all action derives.
This part of the education is exposed in the moral train-
ing, and cannot be explained over each time that it is an
adjuvant to any special exercise. Suffice it to say, that
as long as his will fails him, our own will must take its
place and carry him through walks and other perform-
ances'of muscular activity.

To resume this period, all that belongs to the function
of lofcomotion requires to be treated with the greatest
atten,tion, and subjected to the minutest analysis, as
hardly second in importance to the functions of the upper
extremity, for the steadiness of the foot is the basis of the
steadiness of the body and of the accuracy of the hand.

110 IDIOCY.

The same care should precede and accompany our efforts
at educating the latter.

When we come to consider the hand in idiots as an
instrument of function, we are not more struck with its
physiological disorders or deficiencies than with the almost
universal anomalies of the organ ; hands too short and
clumsy, or spindle-shaped ; fingers truncated, with unfin-
ished nails, or thin and glossy, like quills, with pearly little
nails ; articulations so stiff that they can hardly be moved,
or so loose that they cannot be fixed ; tissues bloodless
or darkened with stagnant blood ; and there are so few
exceptions to these extremes that we cannot avoid con-
fessing the marvellous harmony of both physiological and
organic disorders. This hand, stiff or relaxed, shaken
with automatism or soaked in saliva, must be constantly
present to our sight, as it will become henceforth an object
of solicitude and study.

If any part of us challenges a definition it is the hand,
its excellences being so many that a single definition can-
not comprehend them all. The definition of De Blainr
ville, " a compass with five branches," justly elicits the
admiration of the geometrician ; ours, not so dazzling,
will come nearer to our object — the hand is the organ of
prehension. Its incapacity puts a barrier between the
idiot and everything to be acquired. "Without further
explanation, we will try to carry the hand from its inca-
pacity in idiocy to its full capacity when improved by
education. But this last view of the hand is too broad yet ;
and we shall be contented for the present with improving
its powers only of prehension.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. Ill

When we say prehension,' we mean the complex action of
taking, keeping, losing hold ; otherwise, to seize, hold, and
to let go : those three terms are the beginning, the object,
and the end of the act of prehension. This act, so simple
lor us in its trilogy, is either impossible to, or inciden-
tally performed by the idiot. It requires for its mere
material accomplishment the concourse of contractile
nervous and willed functions. This concourse, far above
the understanding of many men, is certainly above the
average ability of our pupils, who, far from entering will-
ingly, as the occasion offers, into new contacts, find in
themselves more energy to avoid than would be necessary
to meet them. Considering the gravity of this infirmity,
as shutting the being out from any intercourse and creat-
ing the most positive isolation, the task of teaching pre-
hension can never be commenced too soon. Even the
impossibility of standing on the feet must not be a cause
to delay the improvement of the hands, since we see
babies seiae with their contracted fingers before they can
use their feet to stand.

When the idiot cannot, or will not, use his hands, he is
put in front of an inclined ladder, his feet on a round, his
hands on another, which generally he will not grasp.
Supposing the worst to be the case, the child's equili-
brium is soon lost ; he falls as low as the teacher thinks
proper, since he has a good hold of him by the ring of
his gymnastic belt. Then he replaces the child on the
ladder and allows him again to fall, till the child, under-
standing better, and feeling where more comfort may be
found, holds on; with his hands. If he protracts his

112 IDIOCT.

resistance too long (and it goes too far if protracted far-
ther than the time required to get ' acquainted with the
various parts of the apparatus), a stop may be put to it by
transferring the child to the perpendicular ladder, he
being on one side, the teacher on the other, and a suffi-
cient pressure exerted by the teacher's hands upon those
of the child to prevent his throwing himself down, and
to make him support his own weight.

When this, which cannot yet be called prehension, is
accomplished without too much of struggle, the child is
put behind the inclined ladder and made to grasp one of
the highest rounds ; his teacher standing in front of the
same, presses his hands with his own to make sure that
they will not let go. A reliable hold being had in this
way, the teacher passes one foot behind the ladder, with
which he pushes out the feet of the child from the round
supporting them. Against this the child protests, and to
diminish the pressure on his hands, tries to regain with
his feet the lost round from which the teacher keeps them
away ; the more spirited is the contest, the more promis-
ing is the result.

Nevertheless,, long before exhaustion could ensue, the
teacher takes away one of his own hands, and passes it
rapidly on the other side of the ladder where it finds the
hand of the child loosened and moving about, not know-
ing what to do with itself. What to do, is to take hold
of the next lower round. The hand is directed to it.
This new hold is not as heavy as the first one, and offer-
ing a sort of security and repose, the child takes it ; if
not, some assistant holds his hand upon it, till the teacher

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 113

can secure it himself. Then the other hand of the teach-
er lets the other hand of the child go in the same man-
ner, and makes it take a new and lower hold, in the way
already described. So child and teacher descend slowly
the ladder, the pressure of one supplying and teaching
prehension to the other, the weight of the child behind,
the direction of the teacher in front, the pressure on the
hands above, the repulse of the feet below, and lower
down the fear of a fall ; snch are the combined induce-
ments to an early though unwilled prehension. Such
and similar means will soon render a child capable of
grasping at something, at least to prevent a fall.

This frightened grasp must be instantly used to take
hold of, and carry things, for a less instinctive purpose ;
because when a function has been exercised for some
time without object, the child has received from it an im-
pression exclusive of any attribute and usage ; it is not
only for him a useless function, but one whose later intel-
lectualization becomes next to impossible. For this
practical consideration, as soon as a function begins to be
accomplished mechanically, we set it in action for pur-
poses and objects more and more intellectual, trying to
leave no gap in the series of progress till the function is
thoroughly elevated to the rank of a capacity. Now for
the application of this principle to our present case. The
child comes from behind the ladder where he began, un-
der the uniform pressure of our hands, to exercise the
same pressure with his own against the rounds, and to
seize or prehend, without much knowing why, unless for
fear of a fall. We study him after coming from that lad-

114: IDIOCY.

der ; he is seated, or standing, or sitting piteously enough,
looking at his hands slightly bruised, and heated by the
process they have gone through. Do we intend to leave
him there under such an impression ? If we do, he will
present more resistance to our next trial, and will not be
blamable for it; for so far, we have taught him less how
to prehend with his hands than how much to apprehend
with his mind instructed by the sight and touch, the next
similar painful contact ; in fact, we have created less posi-
tive power than negative resistance to the series of man-
ual experiments in which he was entering. On the con-
trary, on taking our child down from the ladder we do
not leave him time to look at his hands, but extending
them horizontally, we put on each a bright apple. He,
partly to feel the coolness on all the burning surfaces,
partly not to let the apples fall, will contract his fingers
and get a circular, equable, willed prehension of them ;
quite a progress on the passive contraction of the hands
on the ladder's round. The apples are used when they
can be had; In summer large balls of crystal would be
cooler and more pleasant if possible. The fall of cur-
rants, grapes, or cherries in the hand would produce a
similar derivation of feeling by contrast ; circumstances
dictate the choice of these means. As for the object;
pleasure confirms the first consciousness of prehension
gotten by force, and opens the organ to any unexpected
perceptions ; preparing the hand, so to speak, to think
and to foresee for itself.

Now that we have obtained from the ladder the good
it can give in the way of creating the grasp, and of

PHTSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 115

forcing to strcQuous or lasting prehension, we may as well
warn against its inconvenience when employed too long
or too exclusively. If used to excess, it elevates or rounds
the shoulders ; it stiffens the joints, particularly the small
ones ; and unfits the hand for light and quick work.
Therefore, to strengthen the prehensive power we must
use, concurrently with the ladder, some other exercise,
such as the balancing-pole, whose action is so rapid, and
may be rendered quite energetic. But to react against
any stiffness produced by the ladder, when the child
comes from it, we must put him to some brisk exercise of
the hands like those described farther on, to promote the
faculty of imitation. From a heavy prehension, the child
must pass to a light one ; from a long one to a short one ;
and we must remember and apply the principle, to teach
the prehension of bodies of every form and weight in its
three modes — seizing, keeping hold of, and. letting go.

The hand is to be trained for years in these abilities,
not so much with extraordinary apparatuses as with things
ordinarily used in daily life. This training transforms in
due season part of formal prehension into easy handling.
As this extension of ability of the hand comes little by
little, its importance may be overlooked, and even its
acquisition neglected ; but this ignorant neglect woald
cost^ after a while, an immense range of capacity ; let us
see.

We prehend everything about in the same manner, but
we certainly handle everything in a special manner, a
glass, an axe, a pen, a spade, etc.; prehension is more
physical, handling more intellectual ; prehending done

116 IDIOCY.

passively has only one object, obedience ; or done ac-
tively, is for the direct use of the child ; but handling is,
we may say, always a willed action having reference to
things, to persons, to feelings, and to combinations of
these innumerable.

As soon as an idiot begins to prehend and to handle, he
must be made to work. "Wihen we impose this rule we
know what obstacles are to be encountered. His hand is
clumsy and weak yet, his movements have no regularity
nor steadiness, his mind does not offer to the organ of
execution any object worth doing, and what he begins
under our orders he drops through unwillingness. Even
when his will begins to harmonize with ours in any under-
taking, his synergy is soon exhausted, and as a sign of his
weakness we may see his forehead or hand becoming
covered with heavy drops of perspiration at the begin-
ning of a thought or of an action. This must not deter
us from our final object ; the more difficult it is, the
sooner and the oftener must we go at it : the simplest
work, the easiest and lightest thing done steadily by repe-
tition or imitation, is better than nothing ; the girl who
begins to wipe the dishes, the boy who picks up the stones
in the field, are above all helping to save themselves from
the horrors of idiocy.

The hand is the best servant of man ; the best instru-
ment of work ; the best translator of thoughts ; the most
skillful hand is yet, in respect to certain realizations, as it
were idiotic ; our own hand shrivels before we suspect
the thousand of ideas which it might realize.

But teaching the idiot's hands to work is different from

PHTSIOLOaiCAL EDUCATION. 117

commanding ordinary ones. The prehension and the easy
handling of objects effect a few labors ; a third element
is to be introduced, the aggressive power of the hand
over the substances to be worked — power whose use is
entirely repugnant to the inoffensive nature of most idiots.
This most important use of the hand, its aggressive capa-
city, is generally assisted by adjuvant instruments. It
alters the surrounding bodies into likenesses of some ideal,
which must preexist in the mind ; it consequently trans-
mutes what is a mode of thinking into a mode of being ;
it works equally the ever similar wooden doll of the
Cretin of the Alps, and the latest improvement in steam
or electricity.

The hand displaces and combines objects by prehen-
sion ; it acts on the surfaces as in polishing, drying, etc.,
by handling ; it acts on the substances proper, as in carv-
ing, cutting, hammering, piercing, by aggression.

The practice of treating idiots will show what distance
separates these works, what capacities each kind of labor
requires ; and particularly how the slow and difficult
introduction of the child into, the class of aggressive
works will develop in him steadiness, will, and power,
the very qualities most antagonistic to idiocy.

The necessity of working with the hand is urged even
upon higher grounds than mere physical or intellectual
advantages. Even things being otherwise equal (but
things are far from being so, most of the time), the work-
ing man is, as such, superior to the idle one : idiots, in
particular, are soon morally improved by working.
"Work every day is prescribed according to their ability,

118 IDIOCY.

here, once for all, no matter if its products be desul-
tory.

The importance of this subject, conclusion of all the
efforts at training the organs of movement, must not
make us forget that we have left some anomalies unspok'
en of, and our few instruments of special gymnastics
undescrihed.

Shoulders rounded by dejection, crooked sternums, con-
cave clavicles, narrow chests, vicious structures, dimin-
ishing the capacity of the lungs for respiration, or of the
heart for circulation ; curved spines, inequality of strength
and Btnicture of the two sides of the body, and similar
offsprings of the incapacity of idiots for movement, are
treated successfully with our gymnastic instruments, and
particularly on the Back-board.

This board is ten inches wide, as long as convenient to
stand inclined against a wall like a ladder, and armed
with rounds which project laterally by pairs, ten inches
apart ; it looks like a centipede. The child lies with hia
back on the board, raises his arms to seize two rounds,
and raises his feet from the ground to the first ones be-
low. From this step he is enabled to reach with his
hands higher rounds, coming up alternately with his
feet, then with his hands, till these reach the top of the
board. There he is allowed a little rest, as well to re-
pose himself as to appreciate the novel mode of ascen-
sion, the distance from the soil, the look of everything
seen for the first time from so high, and to be refreshed
from. past ernotions, so that he can stand what will come
next.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATIOK. 119

Next is the necessity of coining down. To that effect,
we tell him to hold on well with his hands, or if we sus-
pect any incapacity or unwillingness to do it, we send
somebody up behind the board, whose hands shall press
enough on his not to let him fall. At the same time we
rapidly bring his two feet from their respective rounds to
the centre of the board, slightly adducting the legs and
extending the feet. This done with a sensible, not strong
jerk, and bearing with a mathematical equality on both
sides, we replace, if necessary, the spine on the vertical
line, and every organ right and left of it, in their normal
relations : no room for shortness, none for weakness ;
every part must bear its part, play its r6le, keep its place.
Thus have we seen the most shocking differences between
shoulders, deviations, already sensible of. the spine, short-
ness of one limb, disappear under the uniform action of
this equalizer, the Back-board.

The swing acting against a spring-board, that we have
had occasion to mention as an inutrument of passive exer-
cise, becomes one of positive activity if a rope passed
through a pulley be put in the hands of the child to pull
himself with. We set him in motion, and he alone, or
under our sight, or our immediate command, has to con-
tinue the motion by drawing on the rope. This appal-
ratus, when properly built, and with the spring-board
easily brought into different positions to suit different
sized childreuj is made to be alternately an instrument
of passive, or of spontaneous, or of continuous action for
strengthening the arms, neck, spine, and legs. It is
equally adapted to destroy some nervous sensibilities of

120 IDIOCY.

the hand, and more commonly of the foot. This latter
organ in particular is sometimes so delicate as to avoid
the slightest contact, and to refuse even to touch the floor
to walk. The repeated push and repulse of the spring-
board soon do away with these abnormal feelings. The
foot recovers its firmness, and endurance of rude con-
tacts : first qualities for the walk.

The ordinary swing is dangerous as a depressor of the
nervous system, and consequently more greedily wished
for by those children it injures the most. Ours difiiers in
two essential elements from this ; it has a point of contact
on the spring-board, by which the motor powers of the
child are constantly aroused, instead of being lulled into
sleeping indolence ; and it is set and kept in motion by
the child himself, who exercises thus his chest and arms
incessantly, instead of reclining in a useless posture. It
is difiicult to imagine two apparatuses of the same name
and so nearly alike, yet so opposite in their physiological
attainments, as the air-swing of the yards, and the spring-
swing of the idiot gymnasium. The former gives lulling,
enervating sensations; the latter brings on healthy con-
tractions, and binds the unwilling to unavoidable activity.
The dumb-bells are rarely used for idiots as for ordinary
children, as instruments to give a momentum to an au-
tomatic balancing. Automatism in any form need not
be favored in them ; but dumb-bells are instrumental in
many exercises, the purpose of which deserves at least a
hasty notice.

They are used physiologically, as we have seen, to regu-
late the general equilibrium in station, immobility, walk,

PHYSIOLOGICAIi EDUCATION. 121

jumps, going up and down etairs, etc. ; to bring their
momentum to bear ou the shorter or weaker lever when
one side is different from the other ; to give regularity to
irregular movements, and even to carry and absorb the
automatic deviations of gestures into their normal move-
ments ; to teach how to take hold an.d ,to let go; to
teach to ' obey commands with, both sides or only one;
to impress the mind with the ponderable qualities of
matter, each time they are taken and abandoned ; to
realize through the muscles^ by the same alternate bur-
dening and discharging, the rapidity and reality of orders.

The dumb-ibells act on the mind, as much as on the legS,
spine, neck, shoulders, arms, and hands. We find bricks
of greater advantage to strengthen the phalanges of the
fingers, and to- improve the grasp. A prolonged exercise
with the dumb-bells is liable to stiffen the fingers, but
they are handy for group exercises. Of late Swedish
clubs have been substituted for them and do very well,
besides their more sliowy appearance. In individual ex-
ercises they have no advantage over the dumb-bells ; in
group exercises they make a different sight, and could
not well be dispensed with, where introduced by way of
variety and elegance. Moreover, these clubs are not as
heavy as iron dumb-bells ; it is true that we have the lat-
ter of wood also. Nevertheless, '■'■ ahond(m,c& de lien ne
nuit foa^^ and change pleases idiots as well as any of us.

To give the fingers nearly all their strong qualities,
not the delicate, ones, we use the Balancing-pole already
mentioned, but not described. It is a round stick of
hickory, three and a half to four feet long, armed at both

122 IDIOCY.

ends with wooden balls which render it very springy. It
is thrown from our hands into those of the child, who
sends it back, receives it again, and so on with progres-
sive force and rapidity, from increased distances.

This is sooner said than done. The truth is, that some
idiots oifer to it a resistance next to insuperable ; how-
ever, this exercise is of such importance, that the nega-
tion of the child has to make room for our will. If he
runs away from the coming pole, we put his back to the
wall, or his feet on two high steps ; if his hands remain
closed when the stick comes to them, somebody from be-
hind has to hold them open, thumbs up, and to shut them
when the stick is received. The same help is required
to throw off the pole out of the hands which receive it
unwillingly, and which do not want to throw it now.
These helping hands which do the receiving and the
sending, for and through the rebellious hands of the
child, must be very delicate indeed to feel at each
stroke liow much of the child's action begins to take an
instinctive or initiative part in their own action ; and to
calculate, consequently, how much of the next movement
can be left to be accomplished by the spontaneous action
of the child.

So the simple action of receiving and throwing a stick
requires at first not only three pairs of hands to acccom-
plish it, but is to be analyzed and divided into so many
parts of actions, less and less from us, more and more
from the child, that no language, descriptive or scien-
tific, could give an idea of the many steps in this work,
till he, half impatient, half knowing, throws the stick

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 123

with a willed jerk in advance of our help ; then we have
succeeded.

It will be unnecessary to describe again this exercise
when speaking of it as the best gymnastic for a wander-
ing sight. The need of following the stick in its forward
and backward moves renders it especially useful when
we want to educate the look. Its usefulness will be
equally paramount when the hands, narrow-shaped, a^d
the fingers, dry and glossy, can bear no contact but that
of saliva or of a few things selected for their peculiar
softness. It blunts the hyperaesthesia ; under its action
the hands soon resume their normal touch, and we shall
be happy to find the balancing-pole again when treating
the anomalies of the senses.

The application of these instruments of special gymnas-
tics has brought us insensibly from the feet, legs, body, to
shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, and finally to the extreme'
phalanges of the fingers, where lie in apparent confusion
the powers of prehension and of feeling, of selection and
of rejection.

"When educating the hand to prehend and reject with
the balancing-pole, we had occasion for the remark that
this instrupaent was training the hand to rough, not to
delicate contacts. The fact is, that unless unskilfully
handled, it falls on the palms of the hands, whose mus-
cular thickness is well fitted for ■ its rough usage, whilst,
if it falls on the pulp of the fingers, an exquisite pain
indicates that this soft part is reserved for more delicate
perceptions. This delicate tactile power shall hereafter
be the subject of sensorial training; but presently the ex-

124 IDIOCY.

ercising of' delicate pre^hebsidn, in its three forms above
explained, will close the actual series of special motility.

It seems that the smaller the Organ, the more com-
plex are its functiOils ; at least the many ways of iising
the extremities of the hands, which are so complex in
prehen ding,' handling, modifying eveiything, justify this
remark, and explain why more time, more care, more
instruments,' more ingenuities have to be spent during
many years, with the sole object of giving skill to the
fingers. We need iiot enumerate a,ll the things which
have been used for that purpose, but will point out a
few of those \^-hich are truly physiological in their per-
fect adaptation to some deficient function of the hand. ■

The blocks shaped like dominoes, with theh- dimensions
well defined, are laid superposed, combined together, to
give firmness to the handling. Other blocks, like those
used in building or other combinations, will do.

The nail-board' is pierced with holes fitting' exacfly
some nails that the child has to put in, then to take out,
exercising his hand to precision.

The adaptation of geometrical figures to their respec-
tire hollow forms.

The raising, with the fingers from a smooth table, of
collections of minute articles, such as beads, pins, thin
paste-board, pattetns, coins, wafers, etc.

Thfe winding up of cords of various Biases, and the pull-
ing of ropes. •

The pressure ' oil Some mechanism to produce pleasant
sounds or sights,
"" The buttoning jififd' unbuttoning, llacing and unlacing;

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 125

the threading of beads, etc. These exercises, and many
more such, are well calculated to adapt the child's fingers
to every possible form, and to prepare them for every
possible aggressive work on matter. But as this requires,
besides the use of the hand, the interference of some
leading sense, as the sight, a simple mention suffices here,
as we shall have occasion to see these exercises soon in
action elsewhere.

But, after all, the best gymnastics of the hands are
drawn from the things held, handled, modified in the
daily habits of common life ; we said it at the beginning;
we repeat it at our conclusion. Finishing where a
treatise on gymnastics would begin, we turn again our
attention to the point where we found our patients.
They were affected with incapacities only, or with inca-
pacities and disorders of motion and locomotion. Against
these simple or double infirmities we have presented a
series of advices, of means, and of apparatuses that experi-
ence has shoWn the most efficient. But in such matters the
means and instruments are more easily remembered than
the philosophy of their application ; whilst that philosophy .
is the very thing which is above all not to be forgotten.

Therefore we must represent, that whatever instruments
or means are employed, our starting-point to obtain move-
ment was immobility ; that through immobility, though
imperfectly acquired^ we have been enabled to pass our
pupils through many progressive experiments ; that the
greater became their immobility the easier and farther
they moved ; -that immobility has been the beginning of
all lessons of movement, as it is the eupporting point of

126 IDIOCY.

our own actions ; that the more steady is that immobility
the more manly, resolute, and efficient is the action which,
we would not say follows it, but we expressly say, takes
its root in it ; that the kind of immobility impressed upon
our patients every day, at every start, from their entering
under our rule to their starting out for a new life, is the
standard of our strength upon their weakness, of the reac-
tion that our will creates upon their unwillingness in
giving them a determination. That at each lesson, either
if we teach an extension of the motive power, or are
engaged in the painful duty of suppressing automatic
movements, before every exercise we must concentrate
their loose attitudes or stray gestures into compressed
immobility : this is the beginning, this is the end of the
muscular training.

So far we have tried to make our pupil learn to act and
walk ; either by the passive process, somebody or something
moving him ; or half actively, of himself doing that which
he could not help doing under the permanent pressure of
our command. But the passive or quasi-active process
cannot last for ever, and the active one is very slow and
intermittent. Between them nature has contrived an
agency whose spring is magical for good or for evil ; it is
neither entirely passive nor entirely active ; its initiation
is passive, its performance is active ; its modes are pre-
scribed, its execution voluntary ; and its performance
admits of protracted reflex spontaneity — we have de-
scribed the power of imitation.

As an instrument of training we consider imitation as
personal, when it affects the person alone, or objective

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 127

when it affects objects. For instance, we raise an arm,
the child does the same ; that is personal imitation. But
we take a book and set it upright on the table, the child
does the same with another book ; this is objective imita-
tion. Everybody can understand that both of these are
purely scholastic divisions, necessary to be kept in view
for our practice, because each one initiates to different
sorts of actions, and leads to different branches of acquire-
ments and abilities. Otherwise, imitation is the power
resulting from reflex spontaneity of repeating after others
acts that we should not or could not have done of our-
selves. It furnishes a motive to the millions of activities
which have none primarily ; it was the sole educator of
the castes in the ages when the son had to imitate his
father's doings to the end of the race ; it is latent or
patent, normal, endemic, or contagious: as seen in the
Crusaders, the Flagellants, the Gold and Oil maniacs,
etc. This power is in beasts as well as in man ; the par-
rot has it for speech, the ape has it for gestui-es ; we have
it, too, physically confined in appearance," to the speech
and gestures, but all our organs can and do imitate their
similars in the measure of their physiological action.
Children are known to cough, chew food, button their
coats, walk, like their parents ; imitation transmutes the
particular accent of a few parents into a provincial dia-
lect ; it gives the Welsh, the Londoner, the Kentuckian,
their individuality, and assimilates the habitues of Del-
monico to those of Tortoni.

Personal imitation being a natural capacity in us, idiots
or not, we must use it for the good of our children. Its

128 IDIOCY.

physical effects may be expressed as the correct and rapid
reproduction of actions limited to the sensible functions
of the body. Never too soon commenced, never too
much practised, never too far extended in its physiologi-
cal applications. Personal imitation -will create precision
and rapidity, as gymnastics have created strength and
endurance.

Beginning even before the child can stand, if necessary?
we seat him on a chair opposite us, and putting our hands
in certain relations to our bodies, we invite him to do the
same. That he does. not do, and we do it for him, and
keep his hands in situ long enough to make him feel that
that is the point ; and after a reasonable succession of
failures he is to be placed in full view of a group of chil-
dren smartly imitating movements monitored to' them;
this will do as initiation.

The movements of totality, as sitting, standing, kneel-
ing, are to be followed by movements of parts, the head,
one arm, or one leg ; then come the movements of special
organs — the lids, the lips, the toflgue, the fingers, etc.
These exercises will be concentrated upon the organs the
most affected by mutism, automatism, ehorea, etc. In
this respect the hands will be treated as being ■ affected
with one of the greatest infirmities, the inability to pre-
bend. And yet, notwithstanding the special adaptation,
of these exercises to the particular anomalies of each' case,
they must be, in every instance and at each sitting,
merged into the largest mimical generalizations, con-
stantly making the children realize that the smallest part
as well as the whole body, may be called to answer the

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 129

summons of an external will now, and must be ready at
any time. This wide-awakeness of the whole being to
so many and so varied impulses, gives the child a stand-
ing entirely different from his primary attitude, and makes
him sooner or later assume an intelligent countenance
which is not hereafter defaced.

But if our exercises of personal imitation are curtailed
to a few serial movements of the arms, caricaturing the
gestures of the old telegraph, the children are certainly
taught automatism instead of reflex spontaneity ; the im-
perfect application of a principle is dangerous to its final
realization.

In fulfilment of this vindication, Personal imitation, far
from being the circular repetition of a few gestures, is the
sudden, unexpected call into action of any organ that can
be moved by the will. This is the broad ground of our
training in education ; but as the practice can make it
more sensible, we will suppose and prepare a lesson given
to a dozen children, with the double object of general and
hand training.

Imitation is first induced by the concentrated operation
of attention from the teacher to the child ; individual
influence requiring for its success silence, isolation, mono-
tony of light, of color, of circumstances. But after any
practical extension of the imitative faculty is acquired,
this acquisition must be carried from the quiet closet pre-
pared for individual imitation to the open room where
group imitation displays itS' contagious -power: there we
are presently.

We put our children together according -to the kind of

130 IDIOCT.

exercises to be done. K the imitation is to be alternately
personal and objective,with dumb-bells, etc., we leave room
between each of them, say four feet, in two or three rows.
If the exercise is to require a good deal of attention from
child to teacher, or need to be often interrupted by cor-
rections and repetitions necessitated by individual fail-
iires, the children must be closely marshalled on a straight
line, the teacher in front teaching, the silent assistant
correcting wrong movements from behind the file. If
the exercise is already quite familiar, and has for object,
not so much the learning of new gestures, as the correc-
tion and more rapid performance of old ones, the children
will be arranged on a slightly curved line, the more ex-
pert at the centre and extremities of the concavity, each
of them seeing all the rest and the teacher; thus doubly
impulsed and doubly taught.

The first attitude is upright immobility ; without saying
a word, we dictate with gestures the following attitudes :
feet closed, feet open ; forward the left foot, feet again
closed. Raise the right knee, raise the left ; a firm slap
of the left hand upon it, and motionless. Some manoeu-
vres of the left limbs ; then eyes shut, and open. The
two indices crossing each other ; forward the right foot ;
arms crossed ; down on the knees, up again with extended
hands, first attitude — rest in immobility. Next we
dictate more special positions. Face right, face left,
hands raised, one foot forward, left hand out, both hands
out, close the fists, open them, shut them again ; extend
indices, abut them, shut them. Down with the right
thumb, up with the left, both fiat on the closed hands.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION-. 131

Little fingers extended, indices also, abut the four, shut
them all'. All the fingers apart, all close together, indices
apart from the other fingers, little ones the same ; all
open, all shut. Majors of both hands crossed at right
angles, all the fingers of both hands en chevame-de-frise,
all shut in that attitude, separate them briskly. And
many more combinations easier to find than to describe,
closing by three cheers and three claps of the hands, for
the pupils are now warmed, bright, tired, but not ex-
hausted : final immobility.

There has not been a word, a syllable between us ; imi-
tation did all. It has attracted the sight, impressed the
brain, contracted the muscles ; slowly at first, more rapidly
afterwards. The spark which directs a movement from
our brain to our fingers, lights up its refiex action ' in the
fingers ; the work, tedious at first, grows faster and more
pleasant, till there is between us a perfect current, supe-
rior to, if anything different from electricity : cuiTent of
understanding between teacher and pupils, as rapid as any
could be between exponents and auditors. These never-
too-much-repeated exercises quicken the movements, im-
prove the function of sight, extend the range of percep-
tions, give accuracy to the understanding, put all the
parts of the body under the ready control of the will,
prepare all the parts for the full exercise of their func-
tions, educate the dead hand to living work ; in these
exercises above all, remember the hand.

This rapid description of group-training, which holds
good in its general aspect for all sorts of groupings, must
not make us forget by what slow process of individual

132 IDIOCY.

studies we have brought the children so far. But after
mortths of alternate individual and group-training, in fa-
tigue, often in despondency, we see them with joy, not only
imitating the physiological exercises, but carrying their
new powers of imitation into the habits of life ; trying to
eat, dress, stand as we do before them, proffering their
services to weaker children, as we tendered ours to them ;
and finally doing by the influence of habit, what more
gifted children do only under compulsion.

Imitation, confined to the parts of our own body, was
natm-ally limited ; but Objective imitation is nearly with-
out limit. Objective imitation is the correct and rapid
reproduction of actions affecting the relations or the sen-
sible properties of objects. Its rationale is the same as
that of the other kind ;>■ consequently it would be useless
to give a formal demonstration of it here, since we shall
have so many occasions- of showing it in action; The
fact is that henceforth, Personal and Objective imitation
will be brought in constant request to give precision and
quickness to the training in all its branches.

It has been intimated already more than once, that
the foregoing; treatment of the motive organs could not
have been carried so far without being, impeded by many
difficulties, arising from imperfection of other functions
not yet ' considered ; among which are imperfect or ab-
normal sensations. In other words, defective sensations
have necessarily interfered^ more or less, between the
child and the objects of the previous training. Now that
the anomalies of the muscular functions have been mas-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 133

tered, those of the senses present themselves as the fore-
most impediment to future progress.

It would he quick work to enumerate these anomalies,^
apposing to each the best ; means known to obviate it;
but this would be better remembered than understpod ;
and this method must be thoroughly- comprehended, if
we want it ■ to continue to be perfected hereafter. To
demonstrate it is a duty, founded uponr- the conviction
that this physiological method has already rescued many
idiots,. and shall be, when improved, the basis of the.edu-.
cation of mankinds ;

For our practical object, all the senses are considered
as modifications of the tactile property, receivers of touch
in various ways. In Audition, the sonorous waves strike
the acoustic nerves ; in Vision, the retina is tauched by
the image carried by the luminous rays assembled at the
focus ; the Taste and Smell are yet more proximate
modifications. But this touch is only the initiatory part
of the function of the sense ; the impression is to be car-
ried through the nerves to the special ganglia ; and the
sensorial ganglia, after perceiving it, send it to be regis-
tered in the Hemispheres. But this last step, compari-
son included, does not belong to the sensation proper ; it
follows the sensation, but not necessarily, since so many
of our Sensations are felt without being deemed worth
reflection and registration.

Tactile sensation proper is characterized by the feeling
of the touch, or perception ; the seat of the touch is the
peripheric extremities of the nerves ; but the seat of the
feeling is the-ganglion, intermediate terminus of the afferent

134 IDIOCT.

nerves. Thence nerve fibres transmit the feeling to. the
hemispheres, and the efferent nerves transmit the will's
orders to the peripheric organs of action. But the cere-
bral ganglia or hemispheres are not the seat of sensation.
Their removal leaves a bird in a state of stupor, biit it
opens its eyes when it hears the report of a pistol,
and then relapses into immobility ; its sight is also re-
tained, since" it will sometimes fix its eyes on a particular
object ; and likely the perception of the other senses is
retained, for it occasionally smoothes down its ruffled
feathers, in which operation the sense of touch is in-
volved.

On the other hand, that the sensorial ganglia are really
the seat of sensation, is proven by the greater size of the
one ganglion corresponding with the superior attainment
of its function in each animal ; .as in man the relative out-
growth of the hemispheres above the sensorial ganglia is
in proportion to the superiority of his imaginative and
reasoning powers over his capacity of perception through
the senses".

These relative differences explain the immense supe-
riority of the intellectual faculties of man, and his infe-
riority to many animals in purely sensorial perceptibilities.
These remarks identify the principle upon which our
sensorial training shall be based — that sensations take
place from the peripheric extremity of a nerve to its cen-
tripetal ganglion ; the first receiving the shock, the second
the impression of the shock, through the nervous conduc-
tors.

We find illustrations equally beautiful and distressing

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 135

of this analysis of sensations, when we compare an idiot
whose eye cannot be struck by whatever image is pre-
sented to his blank sight, with another whose nerves
transtait the impressions very slowly, and with another
whose sensorium receives the impressions as defaced.
This pathological analysis demonstrates equally well the
point of the mechanism where the false image is formed in
hallucination, and the process by which a slight, peculiar
hesitation, previous to the utterance of speech, precedes
by many months the confirmed symptoms of general
pardysis.

But to limit ourselves closely to our subject, we insist
upon this point, that the functions of the senses may be
affected at their origin, along their course, at their centre,
separately, or together. Let us state as a corollary, that
the senses may be in themselves normal, yet left in the
same state of impotence to perceive sensations, in which
we have seen the motor organs incapable of moving, as if
paralyzed, by mere deficiency of the will and of the intel-
lectual synergy. This last incapacity may be more or less
aggravated by sensorial ones.

From these observatibns, we shall be enabled to draw
a few inferences that will have a practical bearing on the
training of the senses.

We must make sure of the point or points where lies
the deficiency of a nervous function. If it be at the
origin, we must cultivate the point of entrance of con-
tacts, open the doors, enlarge or straighten the windows
througli which the objects of our sensations may come in
contact with the peripheric extremity of the apparatus.

136 IDIOCY.

If it be in the centripetal nerves, we must submit them
to series of exercises of quickness borrowed, from those
of personal imitation; gentle Faradization may do good
in some instances. If the sensorial ganglia lack sensi-
tiveness we provoke them to such alternate, abrupt feel-
ings that these cannot fail to: be perceived : we move and
stimulate them by contrasts. If the senses^ though cor-
rect, do not receive impressions because they are not
lighted by comprehension, we must come down, down
again till we find .fhe object of our sensorial, or better
qualified, intellectual teaching, among and next to*the
very lowest things that the child understands. And if the
want of impression originates in the deficiency of the
will, we must create a desire ; the thing desired shall stamp
its impress on the awakened senses, and soon be looked
for by the child. Practice alone can suggest the whole
of the special rules of which the above are only generali-
zations.

But there is a principle in which culminates all the
training of the functions, particularly of those of the
senses ; principle, whose full comprehension or ignorance
determines the issue of all our efibrts. This principle is
that each function of the life of relation is virtually, can
and must be made eflfectively, identical with its faculty ;
in other words, that each function is psycho-physio-
logical.

This law, demonstrated in animals as well as in man, is
not subject to exceptions even in idiocy. In the natural
state animals elicit the highest degree of instinctive
acuteness or even of comprehension from the use of their

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 137

most perfect senses ; but under the artificial training of
schools and colleges the sensorial and intellectual develop-
'ments of children appear quite disconnected, nay, are
effectively rendered antagonistic ; the over-cultivation of
one causing the drooping of the other ; the exclusive
training of the function impairing the faculty, the exclur
sive training of the faculty atrophying the function.
Contrarily to this practice we say, the exercise of each
function must give rise to a corresponding exercise of the
complementary faculty ; and at the present stage of this
exposition we say more : Each sense must be taught as a
function, and taught besides as a faculty.

The sense of touch being the most general, and in fact
all the senses being mere modifications of it, we shall
begin by it the training.

Although there is more than one sense in the touch, since
there we find special nerves for pleasure and pain, cold
and heat, pressure, etc., it does not behoove our subject to
consider this sense under more than two of its aspects :
one as a receiver of sensation constituting the touch pro-
per, the other as seeker of sensations deserving the name
of tact. By the first we perceive that we are touched by
some body ; by the second, we seek for certain characters
or properties of bodies. In the exercise of the former we
are to a certain extent passive, ready or not to receive the
coming impression ; in the exercise of the latter we are
essentially ready and active. This does not constitute
two senses, but two modi operandi of the same sense : the
.like remark obtains for the other senses ; and if we can

conform our training to this modus operandi of nature,,

9

138 IDIOCY.

we shall find our task of awakening the senses compara-
tively easy.

The Tactile function is the most important of our
senses, as we have seen it the most general, and preced-
ing all the others at birth. This sense is almost neglected
in education, sadly abandoned in children to habits of
dirtiness and depravity, and in women its disorders are
intimately blended with those of hysteria, etc. In idiots
the touch often does not send to the mind, or the mind
does not receive from the tou,ch its normal impressions ;
if it be not sickly and concentrated in one or two pleas-
ing, repeated sensations, it is devoid of the ability of per-
ceiving new ones, not wished by the mind. This sense
in its passive and active moods is dull for all intellectuar
and practical purposes, and if exceptionally exalted is
found governed by a few sickly susceptibilities.

If we examine the hand, moist with saliva, or in auto-
matic agitation, and if we except the few peculiarities of
delicacy above referred to, that hand gives scarcely any
sign of feeling contacts ; and decidedly far from desirous
of using its tactile sense, tries to escape its exercise by
all means. But if we take it after a series of prehensive
and imitatory trainings as those described above, we find
it moist with the gentle perspiration of labor, a little agi-
tated by its previous actions, but quite ready for a new
set of experiments.

These experiments will .be of three kinds; one to culti-
vate the perception, one to transmit it, one to give the
knowledge of it ; and though these three operations are
always more or less united, it will be easy to perceive

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 139

that the exercises may be calculated so that each one of
these operations prefiminates over the others, and we have
only to make our choice in each series of exercise, ac-
cording to the part of the whole function which needs
the most of training.

When the peripheric termini of the nerves of touch
are excitable or morbidly exquisite, we see the child avoid-
mg normal contacts, and his organs left entirely a prey
to the painful sensibilities of hypersesthesia. Before do-
ing anything to correct these perversions of the touch, let
us look at their seat in the integuments, mostly in the
hands. If they have not been levelled to the standard of
working hands by previous gymnastics, they oflfer a curi-
ous assemblage of transparency, stiffness, and emaciation.
Our duty here is imperative ; at the same time that we
give suppleness to the phalanges by passive exercises, we
must hasten to cover the nervous termini with stronger
epithelium by. repeated friction against hard substances ;
anything which is rough enough is good enough for this
purpose, as carrying bricks, turning coarse-handled
cranks, spading, sawing, etc.

But when the external termini of the nerves of touch
are dull or insensible, by looking at the hand we ascer-
tain a softness of the articulations, an absence of prehen-
sion, a want of warmth and of circulation, greatly aggra-
vated in winter. These signs of ansesthesia indicate
another course of treatment ; the objects of contact must
not be rough, but substantial ; this condition appeals for
a full use of contractibility ; at the same time the hand
must be titillated with feathers as if it were for fun,

140 IDIOCY.

passed upon bodies of various degrees of polish or of re-
sistance, as on a slab of marble, or on velvet, etc. It
must be plunged alternately into cold and warm liquids,
in agglomerations of bodies of different softness or elasti-
city, as bags filled with eider-down, shells, peas, flour,
small shot, etc. The child, without the. concurrence of the
sight, must tell the difference between the contents of
these bags by the sole impression of his touch, etc.

The occasions for the special trainings of the peripheric
organs of touch are of frequent occurrence ; they being so
often under and above the normal standard of sensi-
bility.

Once we had a girl, seven years of age, much afflicted ;
for, besides her idiocy, which was superficial, she could
not stand on her weak legs. Her, sensations of sight and
hearing were good, those of smell and taste rather fasti-
dious ; those of the tactile order, instead of being con-
centrated and intellectualized in the hands, were rather
running wild through her frail crippled body, which could
stand almost no contacts, or was seeking for those of an
enervating order, making her a very nervous, tiresome,
and often miserable child ; against this tactile infirmity,
which was tending rapidly, in our judgment, towards a
more specific nervous affection, wo instituted a series of
tactile experiments drawn from collections of everything
that could be handled ; her eyes were shut, her hands
ready, the things given to her and named by her, in a
continuous and contrasting succession ; attention of the
touch, that is to say, protracted tactile exercises, gave a
new direction to her feelings, she became more quiet and

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 141

could use her once useless hands after a short time for
ordinary purposes.

When the centripetal nerves are slow in accomplishing
their action, the balancing-pole gives them quickness.
To that end let us choose a light one, .whose body is elas-
tic, and send it into the hands of the child, who has to
send it back to our hands extended in waiting for it : this
is a fast game, in which the vibrations of the pole send
their undulatory shocks, as the bow sends its to the fiddle
through the strings ; felt it must be ; in token of which,
the child who was at first sending the pole rather reluc-
tantly, sends it back very soon with a sort of repulsive
vigor, as if saying, " Too quick for me." True, the rapid-
ity and number of vibrations thus sent and communi-
cated to the slow organs is incredible, but the more efii-
cacious.

The sensorial ganglia may be suspected of being the
seat of the deficiency of sensibility when what remains of
this is more dull than slow, and when the integument used
in prehension and touch offers no particular anomaly. In
these less promising cases we must not relinquish entirely
our daily experiments of the touch, but ask from hygieag
and medicine the help that they can give, if interrogated
with discretion on constitutional matters.

From this point up, the doubt about the organ where
lies the defect or the breach of communication, is not
easy to resolve. Nevertheless, if one sensorial function
alone be stopped, or decidedly more deficient than the
othere, we may surmise that the disconnection is in the
special apparatus, or sensorial ganglion ; but if all the

142 IDIOCY.

functions fail to transmit their impressions to the hemi-
spheres, these intellectual organs may fairly be held ac-
countable for the infirmity.

We have insisted upon these tests of the diagnosis as
paramount to the treatment, because their analogue will
be found in the study of other senses, and also because
■when we meet with similar obscurities, instead of treating
actively all at once we know not what, we must keep the
children under a simple treatment of observation. There,
not being disturbed by much coaxing, exercised for their
health and comfort, we have a chance to observe them ;
they have chances for attention, emotion, awakening of
feelings : this too is treatment.

We need make no apology for introducing the taste and
smell, after and almost as appendages to the touch, because
they are the senses the nearest akin to it, and their treat-
ment once disposed of here, we shall be at liberty to
follow without interruption the education of the eye and
ear as far as they will carry us into the intellectual
training.

This remark does not imply that the taste and smell
are gross material senses which. have nothing to do with
the intellect. Where we find them low and depraved, it
is becaiise they have been fed with vulgar, fastidious, or
disgusting food, in the same way that reason is limited
by ignorance, blighted by prejudice, distorted by sophis-
try. It is true, God has blessed with no taste or smell,
those who live in destitution, crowded among decaying
animal and vegetable matters ; but. whenever the work-
ing masses are put in contact with elegant perfumes and

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 143

food, if it be ouly to produce them, they are improved
and elevated by it. On -the other hand, any excess in
food or drink, or aromatics, is visited by disorders of
function which react on the moral qualities. The use, we
mean the normal use, of food and perfumes has a present
and lasting influence on idiots.

Its present effect is to make them sensible to anything
dirty, and desirous to avoid it, and to anything pleasant,
and wishing to enjoy it. It forces the mind of the child to
the exercise of many operations of comparison and judg-
ment upon sensorial tastes and distastes, which could
never take place in his brain at this present early stage of
the training, upon matters pertaining to less sensorial and
personal feelings. It is, besides, a guarantee against glut-
tony, the delicacy of the taste extending soon as far as to
the comfort of the stomach.

As for the future, the cultivation of these senses deter-
miiies always the general, and often the special tendencies
of our pupils. Educated in the enjoyment of cleanliness,
good food, sweet air, their general tendency is to shrink
with horror at the contacts of the street, chance, and beg-
gai'ly life which is the lot of many uneducated idiots and
imbeciles ; and to determine their aspirations towards bet-
ter and higher walks of life. That special culture
opens their laboring avocations in tlie way of some healthy,
honest employment of their small abilities, by which
they become gardeners, florists, and farm boys, instead
of slaves of competitive labor in feodal, infectious factories.

"We do not need to say much more, to show that the
education of these senses is of the utmost importance,

IM IDIOCY.

even when being- only dull, they are not found incapaci-
tated by some peculiarity. Borrowing nearly always our
studies from coiitrasts, rai'ely from similars, we must be
careful to go far enough in the extremes of differences to
make them felt, but not enough to blunt the nerves.
There is a gamut in the scale of smell and taste as in the
scale of sound ; it is not beneath our di'gnity to compose
series of experiments to awaken the dull senses of idiots,
as the florist combines his bouquets for enervating and
other purposes, or the cook prepares Lis dishes for the
satisfaction of delicate appetites.

For those unmoved by moral or artistic considerations,
or even little sensible to the comfort or happiness that
idiots certainly derive from the appreciation of good
things, it will be necessary to present the training of the
smell and of the taste, in its true relation to strictly intel-
lectual and spontaneous faculties.

In the first place, in the blank condition of their mind,
anything desired by the taste or smell, even the most
vulgar, which can make an impression must be welcome,
as the first object likely to exercise attention, and to be
compared with the next. In the second, if the child does
not care for anything but a few objects whose taste and
smell we taught him to like and wish for ; well, there are
our first levers, there are the characters of our drama,
let them speak. A smell attracts the attention of the
child ; his hand, which has never held anything, brings
the perfumed flower to his nose, or oftener to his mouth,
very frequent and curious confusion of the two senses ;
let him do ; do not disturb this first intention, this first de-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 145

sire followed by a voluntary action, and its rewarding
pleasure, even if he eats the flower, instead of smelling it.
But this is only the beginning.

The senses and delicacies have declared their affinities
for each other. We cultivate the former, we select intel-
ligently the latter ; and here by satisfying, there by con-
trasting these appetites, we multiply the objects of com-
parison, we graduate the exercises of the child, and we
always end a more sensorial, would-be vulgar exercise of
the taste or smell by increasing the attention, the com-
parison, the desire and will of our pupil.

When he is familiar with a certain number of objects
by the use of sense, those are spread out, and he is
asked which he prefers, wliich he knows by name if he
can speak ; or if he does not speak, to select, or even to
eat or smell those he likes best. Then depriving him
momentarily of his sight, we present successively the ob-
jects to the tongue or nostrils, which must discriminate
them without the help of the touch, sight, or hearing.
When an idiot is brought to that point of attention, com
parison, desire, once or twice a day for several weeks or
months, for the satisfaction of this class of appetites, ex-
perience does not permit us to doubt that he soon can be
attentive, reasoning, willing, about something else ; we
could sooner doubt that the yard-stick used to measure lace
could measure calico ; that the child who counts cherries,
can soon count dollars ; attention once fixed, is fixable ;
discrimination and will once acting upon one series of phe-
nomena will act upon others, provided these new ones are
natural, and presented in a physiological gradation.

14:6 IDIOCY.

Before entering into the treatment of audition, it is
necessary to consider the anomalies of that function.
The diagnosis of the various • incapacities of the ear is
difficult. The ear in man does not show its activity by
external signs, as it does in some animals, nor even as
much as does our eye. Some people seem to hear well
though perfectly deaf, as when, through the vibrations of
the floor, they follow the rhythm of music or the dance
in measure ; or when a deaf-born baby begins to under-
stand and to use language as long as it lies on the vi-
brating chest of his nurse ; but hears no more and speaks
no more as soon as it is deprived of its contact with the
resonant walls of this living musical instrument.

Hence, parents generally assert that their child was
' not born deaf, but became so precisely at the time when
it was put down to crawl and walk. Hence J. E. Pe-
reire concluded conversely that ho could teach the percep-
tion and the reproduction of the speech by the touch ; in
which he succeeded so well that he communicated to his
pupils even his own southern accent.

On the other hand, children may not hear because, not
of organic, but of intellectual deafness. A celebrated
surgeon once sent us as a deaf mute idiot, a child who
could give no sign of hearing and was absolutely mute.
"We had seen with Itard sevea-al children intellectually
deaf; and having ascertained that this one was sensible
to a single noise produced by something he liked, we
promised his parents that he could be made to hear, which
he did inside of three months, and to speak, which he did
inside of six. But in the majority of cases of apparent

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 147

deafness and mutism, we must be sparing of promises.
One fine-looking idiotic girl, after years of apparejit deaf-
ness, was taught to hear and comprehend the language
very well ; yet she remained mute, being prevented from
speaking, even from crying, by local paralysis : showing
that mutism cannot always be safely referred to either
kind of deafness indicated above.

Besides the intellectual deafness caused by idiocy,
alienation, ecstasy, and the organic deafness caused by
defects in Jhe organ of audition, there, are several causes
which interfere with speech in children, idiotic or not.
These causes which complicate or aggravate idiocy are
paralysis, of which we gave an example. Chorea, dysp-
noea, an unsymmetrical arrangement of the maxillary
bones, and teeth,, vices of conformation of the larynx and
tongue, and a high, ogival or funnel-shaped palate, etc. —
accessory infirmities which require the- help of medical,
surgical, or mechanical skill. Leaving this to whom it
belongs, we concentrate our efforts upon the intellectual
deafness produced by idiocy. •

This deafness and its consequent muteness is not always
absolute ; the children may hear a few words in a sen-
tence, and speak in the same proportion ; they may hear
words uttered very near them, and they will speak or
answer at the same distance — not farther ; nevertheless,
to embrace all the cases, we treat of intellectual deafness
in its broadest acceptation.

The sense of hearing is put in activity by the stroke of
atmospheric waves into the auditory apparatus. Its
functions are hearing, auditing, listening, selecting, and

148 IDIOCY.

repelling sounds. We simply hear when a sound makes
an impression without the help of attention ; we audit
when the organ is kept intellectually attentive ; we listen
lyhen the sounds or their meaning being difficult to
gather, the organ is kept in functional erethism by the
will. The ear selects one sound among many, as when
following the tick-tack of a watch among clocks beating
the same measure, or the voice of the broker among the
rnelie of cries at the stock-exchange, etc. ; and the ear
excludes altogether the impression of all sounds when
our mind is deeply engaged otherwise. These two latter
uses of the ear are acquired by experience in special cir-
cumstances ; the first three are, for the sake of simplicity,
reduced to two — the passive mode, or hearing, the active
mode comprising auditing and listening, whose distinction
is only incidental, though important.

The sounds, objects of our present studies, are noises,
music, and speech. These three classes of sounds speak
respectively, the noises to the wants, the music to the
motive powers, the speech to the intellect.

From passive hearing to active audition and intense
listening applied to these three classes of vibrating phe-
nomena, there are many grades that are far from being
gotten over by many children — even by most men ; in
this way we carry idiots as far as we can, and generally
far enough for ordinary intellectual purposes.

The sounds of noises are like hieroglyphics of pheno-
mena, meaning the thing producing the noise : one
means pouring rain, another means the rushing of winds ;
one means sawing wood, another means the frying in the

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 149

pan which awakens the child's appetite. The wild boy
educated by Itard did not hear the report of a pistol dis-
charged behind his head, but heard the fall of a nut
upon the floor. If water be poured from one vessel into
another near an idiot apparently deaf, at a time when he
is very thirsty, he will turn his head and go for a drink.
What a field to awaken the attention and make the organ
ready and sensible !

Music, if it has no special meaning for idiots, is com-
petent, by the arrangement of its vibrations, to excite
in them many unknown impulses ; hence music has more
lasting and varied applications than noises in our treat-
ment.- Noises are more particularly taught to indivi-
duals separately, in isolation and in ambient silence ;
music is employed more for groups in nearly all its appli-
cations, and they are many.

Music pleases the child without hurting him, a few ex-
ceptions reserved ; it gives rest from hard labor ; it causes
in the immovable child a tremulousness of all the fibres,
which is easily turned into incipiency of action ; it pre-
pares the nervous apparatus in a similar manner, awakens,
quickens, and supports the thoughts wonderfully ; it de-
rives anger, weariness, melancholy, and disposes to gentle
feelings ; it is a moral sedative by excellence.

"We hardly think it necessary to say that to produce
these physiological eff'ectB, the music played before and
with the -concourse of idiots must be selected or com-
posed expressly for their wants, their tastes, the necessi-
ties of their various circumstances.

The general characters of their music must be striking

150 IDIOCY.

contrasts, long silences after vivacious measures, etc. ; the
morning airs beginning with the tunes corresponding to
the natural dispositions of the children, modified by the
brightness or dulness of the atmosphere, by the heat,
thunder, rain, snow, and any particularity that affects
the emotional powers. The tunes must carry them thence
by a pleasing transition to the point of slight reflective
excitement favorable to study ; the tunes played to con-
centrate the attention acting like a sedative to muscular
exertion, and those relieving the mind from these bonds
must express mirth or muscular vigor to disperse the
children towards play-ground or gymnasium.

Preceding physical exercises, the strains shall be
lively ; and when accompanying them shall affect, as
nearly as possible, the measure of the actions com-
manded ; and when later, accompanying the exercises of
human voices, the notes must come forth in long, pro-
longed tones, favoring the emission of the steady sounds
of vowels or syllables. As for the artistic use of music,
idiots are sensible to it. As a recreation, their taste is of
the popular or colored kind ; they like lively, funny airs
and songs, without being indifferent to impressive ones.
Most of them like to be drowned in torrents of music,
■ being soon carried away by the impulse of its vibrations ;
and it does them good to be served often through the day
with treats of harmony as with food, provided there be
variety in the acoustic relishes.

The first teachings of music are not the product of any
profound system, but the result of long, steady cultiva-
tion cf habit. The child who does not care for, or does

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 151

not even hear music, is treated as if he loved it ; and as
there is plenty of it about the house, let him be struck
by it. Only, as he is not sensible \q it in ordinary con-
ditions, we must create the conditions most favorable to
prepare his senses for hearing. To that effect, when
tunes are to be played, we put the intellectually deaf
child near the piano, and if necessary at first, we let him
support his hands,' even his chest, against the instrument,
which most weak or lazy children are willing to do sooner
than to stand upright. When he is just settled in this
posture the piano sends forth its strongest vibrations,
then its sweetest tones, then comes a long silence, fol-
lowed again by vibrations. This takes place in the
midst of group teaching, with the incitement of the other
children auditing and singing themselves. Contrarily,
the next experiment for perceiving the sounds of music
shall be made an individual exercise; the child kept in
isolation, even in darkness, and music played at a dis-
tance, whence it comes unencumbered by the noise or
movements of other children, will penetrate sooner or

, later into the blank organ. Surprise sounds, too, are
tried occasionally to start up an unexpected sense of
hearing.

As soon as the child shows signs of sensibility to music,
these various experiments must be made pleasant enough

. tb transform the simple function of hearing into the capa-
cities of auditing and listening. One, auditing is deve-
loped by giving continuity to the tunes as if they were
discoveries; the other, listening is created by breaking
the continuity of the tune at its most interesting accent-

152 IDIOCY.

point where in language we place the mark of interroga-
tion ; leaving the ear of the child hearing yet, and listen^
ing, as if thirsting for' more. .

But above all, and for our present object, the teaching
of music must be soon blended in that of speech, and first
of voice. The voice which sings emits vowels ; these vow-
els may be intoned by imitation to the diapason of the
speech, and after a while supported by consonants. This
transformation is brought on insensibly in the course of
the musical training, and shall be more technically im-
proved hereafter.

If we now look back, we can see that we began to use
music to please, to attract instinctive attention, to give a,
passive vibration to the muscles and nerves preparatory
to and during exercises. We have used music to give
perspicuity and continuity to audition, and to support the
organs of voice in learning to speak. Finally we shall
find it intermingled with most of the exercises and habits
of life of our pupils, as a happy, healthy stimulus. It
was the most pleasing and unmeaning of our agents ; it
has become the most useful, it has adapted itself to our
deepest purposes.

When idiots cry we must remember that they are still
children, some of them little infants. Many of them do
not speak, they scarcely move, they have no other lan-
guage than cries, no other gymnastic than the diaphragm-
atic spring-board upon which' they exercise their vital
organs in respiring and screaming. If we knew more,
we should appreciate these voices, all significant of the
wants, the love, the excitement of life reduced to its last

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 153

limits of inwardness. Consulting our own sensations, we
could remember how the chest requires expansion, and
how often we have yawned with iQild sigh after protracted
silence and immobility : we ought sometimes revert to
our own physiological necessities when we are on the
verge of impatience about physiological manifestations
from children that we do not understand. The truth is
about their cries, that besides their value as chest gym-
nastics, they are their sole alarm in danger or want, their
sole means of social communication. But more, these
cries are voices after all, they are the only beginning upon
which we may be able to found the teaching of the
speech ; altering the cry into a medium voice, supporting
that voice on successive consonants, and so on, preparing
the materials of true speech out of the animal voice.

Before commencing to extract the speech out of the
instinctive language of cries, we must take a good survey
of the organs from the lips inwards ; be sure that there are
none of the physical or pathological defects mentioned
above which must have been removed, if existing by this
time. We may say the same of the moral incapacities of
the child to which another part of this book is reserved ;
they demand all our attention previous to entering into
the training of the speech. What we want is good- will on
the part of the teacher and pupils, and a willed under-
standing between them. Such, with confidence and win-
ning kindness, are the physical and moral elements to be
insured before trying to teach a mute, or half-mute idiot
to speak. '

Oar language being the representation by a combina

10

154 IDIOCY.

tion of sounds and articulations, of all the human impres-
sions and spontaneities, it is manifest that the idiot must
find it the act the most impossible and antipathetic to his
nature ; because it requires what he lacks most, the syn-
ergy of several faculties with several organs.

To make it sufficiently expressive upon idiots, we have
to strengthen it with uncommon accent and emphasis, act-
ing with words on the tympanum, in the same way as
moral coercion acts on the mind. Besides, to teach the
distinct perception of the voice, we must emit it from
very near, and more than distinctly, contracting sound as
well in volume as in pitch. And to teach the meaning
of the words as representatives of entities, properties,
actions or commands, the accents or emphasis will better
mark their intellectual value than all possible commenta-
ries. So that the exaggerated accent and emphasis, far
from being a temporary expedient, will accompany all our
teaching to its end in slow decreasing progression, except
in a single case worth stating instantly.

We drop the accent when we want to command any-
thing for which the child must make a choice of his own
judgment. "With this particular object in view, our
speech to him must be of such evenness that not a syllable
could influence him to follow our own idea instead of his
free will ; then the gestures and look must be as neutral
as the language ; more about this in the moral training.

The mechanical processes of speech are of two orders;
one taught in the imitation-room from mimicry for the
formation of articulation ; the other we have seen bor-
rowed from music for the training of the voice.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 155

At the first lesson appointed for the beginning of articu-
lation, the child is made to resume his morning and evening
exercises of imitation without warning, explanation or ado ;
the movements are mostly concentrated in the hands, the
hands brought about the face, the fingers put in and about
the mouth. All the parts of the face are moved in corre-
lation with the fingers, and the mimicry is effected with
the double object, first: of giving the child an analytical
survey by the touch, the sight, and the movement of the
various parts involved in the act of speech, from without
inwards ; second, of making him execute silently after us
the movements of the different parts employed in speak-
ing. At this second stage of imitation, the hands have
been withdrawn little by little, the teaching and the taught
faces have come nearer, taken a better survey of each
other, and their execution of mimicry has grown warmer,
quicker, more correct. After this, all the organs of speech,
the lips, tongue, etc., are moved freely in all directions,
and in every manner ; sind once, as if by chance, in the
middle of the mute, mimical exercises, the lips being well
closed, we part them by thrusting out an emission of
voice which pronounces Ma or Pa^ it is just indifferent
which. If the child's lips be soft, pale with confused deli-
neations. Ma is the word; if the lips be red, firm, well-
shaped, we begin with Pa. The same remark will rule
the beginning of all the labial, lingual, dental, or guttural
syllables ; we are governed at first by the structure of
the organs, but after choosing the easiest to be pronounced
first by the pupils, we soon disregard them, and do not
linger in the matters of routine, but advance every instant.

156 IDIOCY.

Often things do not go on so easily ; particularly in
joining the sound of vowels to the articulation of conso-
nants. This difficulty is generally overcome by the mu-
sical exercises of the voice. Here music ceases to be a
passive pleasure, and becomes the unpleasant, irresistible
propnlsor of the voice. This change must be' made by
an insensible transition ; happily as we have had time to
transform or concentrate gradually the imitatory move-
ments of the whole body into the imitative mimicry of
the organs of speech, similarly we had the same opportu-
nity of time and instruments for transforming the passive
audition of music into its imitation by the voice. These
imitations may be at first clumsy, short, accidental, rare
even ;. let us enforce them more and more at the piano,
with our own voice, by private efiforts, in private gi'oups,
perseveringly exacting voices out of mutism, long sounds
out of short ones, series of them after single emissions.
The whole is done with the help of the piano or of other in-
struments supporting well the voice ; and afterwards we
again take hold of our good lever imitation, moving this
time with it altogether voice and articulation, in isolation
or in groups, for the emission of syllables simple, double,
or compound, once, twice, or more times, with or without
music, with or without formal command.

In this completion of the function it is of some import-
ance which syllables are first taught. "We present as
foremost the two first indicated. Ma or Pa; they are the
proper ones to commence with when the lips are in nor-
mal relations, and only remarkable, as we said, for their
softness or firmness. But if, in their construction and

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 157

relation to each other there are anomaliies, we would find
it more rational to begin by other syllables. For in-
stance when the upper lip is thick, and the lower one
thin and short, abutting easier to the upper teeth than to
the upper lip, the syllables Va and Fa will be proper.
Some anomalies of structure or relation concerning the
teeth, tongue, and palate, will offer other inducements to
avoid and to select different syllables to begin with.
Rarely the tongue moves easier than the lips ; but if so,'
*'Za" or"i?a," will present an advantage for a start.
Where the organs are normal, the rule is to teach the
syllables in the order in which they are emitted from the
iips backwards, from the seen to the unseen organs.
Otherwise, we must follow the indications of nature's
own plan, the exceptional progression of the teaching,
seeming fixed beforehand by the peculiar build of the
parts.

Another rule is to commence the lessons with syllables
beginning with a consonant, and to use those in which
the vowel is inclosed between two consonants alternately
with those in which two consonants precede the vowel,
for fear the tongue should lapse into the habit of one of
these pronunciations and refuse to emit the others. The
syllables beginning by a vowel come later yet, as it is
a great deal easier to say Pa than Ap, the first utterance
being supported by the lips, the second by nothing.
More in regard to the teaching of speech might be said,
but as it becomes soon mingled with that of writing and
reading, we will not anticipate here what we shall have
to expose hereafter.

158 IDIOCY.

Enough to say that when we have followed any of
these graduated categories for a certain length of time,
we find them dangerous as creating routine, more par-
ticularly those favored by the peculiarities of structure
above referred to ; so that the series of exercises the
most appropriate at the beginning must soon be avoided,
and replaced by, and afterwards alternated with, their
exact opposites. Finally, we must not foi'get that in the
.primary trials, doubling the syllables renders their pro-
nunciation easier and more attractive ; later, it would be
an impediment to progress, and an incitement to stutter-
ing: but at the start everything sounding like syllables is
to be encouraged first, and corrected afterwards. There-
fore all our primary rules here are nothing but transitory
and transposable expedients, subject to the higher law of
observation. So far we have spoken of the exercises of the
speech only as individual, and forced by the strength of
direct imitation ; but as any one can surmise, the child
has, for a long time previously, been made a witness to
the exercises of the speech by groups, before he is made
a participant in them. As soon as he gives certain signs
of attention or tries to imitate speech, he is systemati-
cally exercised in it alone and in a group. At whatever
point of the vocal teaching we are engaged, it is impor-
tant to remember that speech is such a spontaneous fac-
ility, that it is not enough to teach it, to produce it. The
chances are that what the child learns to-day, he will not
show at once; but occasion will bring it out later; or
what the child learned and did not show in private
teaching will appear when he shall take his part in the

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 159

group, and vice versa' and M-hat private or group emis-
sion of voices cannot bring out, may flow from his lips
without effort after some lazy looking on, and accidental
hearing : we sow and nature fecundates.

We must conform our teaching to that physiological
law of the production of voice as well as of everything
spontaneous in man. At. the time when we teach sylla-
bles or words with so much fatigue to ourselves and con-
centration to the child, we must not expect to see him
using them in his own language ; but as if he had learned
nothing, he will continue to emit for his own use the
bi-sy liable repetitions whose grammar is music. " Ah-de-
dS," shouts Edward in his joy; "Ah-nt-ni," repeats he in
disappointment; ringing or nasal sounds which adapt
themselves exactly to theories of philology, like the colors
of a painter to a landscape. Our primary teaching must
go through without touching this natural speech, taking
care not to substitute Greek etymologies for those of pas-
sion, fearing to suppress in the speech of the child its
higher element, spontaneity : justly afraid of our coming
under the severe apostrophe of J. J. Kousseau, " Every-
thing is well as it comes from the hand of the Creator,
everything degenerates in the hands of man." If any-
thing is divine in speech it is not grammaticism, it is the
bounteous fluency, which flows like a stream from the soul.

For a long time we must be satisfied with this double
progress, not always keeping pace with each other, of
formal speech in the training, and informal language ;
later exercises and practice will tend to nnite them.

We postponed until now an observation that the reader

160 IDIOCY.

has no doubt supplied ; it is concerning the part to be
attributed to the sight in the training of the speech.
Sounds are taught by audition, but articulation is appre-
ciated by the look ; we had no opportunity to consider the
functions of the eye so fa,r, but we come to them presently.
The sight is the sensorial function by which we receiye,
through light, the impression of objects standing or com-
ing in its range. This constitutes passive vision. Active
vision or look, is the faculty of the same sense so very
special and diversified from man to man, that two painters
never reproduce, i.e. see the same object in the same
light. But, to understand its grandeur and power, not in
a Titian, a Cuvier, or a Schiller, but in our own selves,
we have to compare the capacity of our sight with that
of the same sense in some idiots. In them it is reduced
to the sensibility of the retina to a iey^ rays of light fall-
ing obliquely into the chamber of vision, nothing else
seeming to be perceived but a dark obstacle. But yhat
wonder ! when our own mind is much concentrated, we
do not see things actually passing before us, nearly strik-
ing us, no more than insane at some times and idiots
ordinarily do. In most idiots the sight, without being so
deeply anomalous, is much perverted in all its mcJdes of
perception or in one only ; as when they see things, appre-
ciate their number, their shape, their usage, and cannot
discriminate their color. Idiots, even seeing quite accu-
rately, seem to experience various difficulties in looking
at, in directing, or concentrating their willed i*egard in
some direction or at some distance ; generally their'look,
when they h9,ve any, does not seem to go or stay where

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 161

they wish, and appears thrown at hap-hazard. The
voluntary functions of this sense are always defective.
They see, but look badly or accidentally, and use their
sight only for hunting the things they crave for ; some
even, when asked to look at something, shut their eyes
firmly when trying to obey. In fact the sight is, of all
our senses, the most intellectual, and the one whose ano-
malies are the most varied and the most connected with
intellectual disorders in idiocy.

For these reasons, and on account of the help we bor-
row from the restoration of thi^ function for all parts of
the training, we must begin the education of the sight as
soon as possible. But let us confess that if the diagnosis
of the infirmities of the ear is more difficult than the dis-
tinction of those of the eye, the training of the eye pre-
sents more real obstacles than that of the ear. "When the
function of the sight, entirely involuntary, is reduced to
serving a few instincts, and restricted to the reception of
a few passing reflections of light or of brilliant objects,
the task is difficult. "When we taught the ear, more pas-
sive sense, we had only to send the sounds into the concha,
and they entered, striking the tympanam, moving the
nerves through the ossicula : we were acting and the
passive organ was reacting. But the eye is an orgg,n
more active by its nature, inactive only in idiots by ex-
ception, and not easily coaxed to action. To make a child
feel a body, we put it in his hand ; to make him smell
another, we bring it to his nostrils ; to make him taste
another, we place it in his mouth ; but to make the idiot
see, when he turns his eyes away, pr covers them with

162 IDIOCY.

Lis hands, or shuts them, or throws himself down when
any object is presented to his sight, what shall we do ?

No doubt the resistance to an intelligent use of the
sight is not always so complete, violent, and obstinate ;
but even when it is of a more negative character, we find
it insuperable enough in its milder forms, to bring home
to us more than gne discouragement.

Of all the things, if there be any, which can penetrate
the glassy or tarnished eye of our pupil, it is our own
loot : the looks call for the look. We keep the child
seated or standing, in \front or close to us, alone, no noise,
no company, not much of light nor of darkness ; our feet
ready to immobilize his feet, our knees his knees, our
hands his head and arms. "We search his eyes with our
intense and persevering look — he tries to escape it;
throws his body and limbs in every direction, screams and
shuts his eyes. All this time we must be calm and pre-
pared, correcting eccentric attitudes and plunging our
sight into his eyes when he chances to open them. How
long will it take to succeed ? Days, weeks, or months ;
it depends upon the gravity of the case, upon the help
received from the general training, and from other means
of fixing the attention of the eye soon to be exposed.
But the main instrument in fixing the regard is the regard.
When this does succeed, as soon as our look has taken
hold of his, the child, instead of taking cognizance of
phenomena by the touch or smell, uses concurrently, and
after a while exclusively, his newly acquired powei-. At
that time the voice and commands will be better under-
stood, and need not be uttered so loud, since besides hear-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION'. 163

ing, the child now looks at us, and understands also the
meaning of our words by that of our physiognomy.

But there are many more means of fixing the sight.
"We need only present, as in a lump, those borrowed from
private life, from necessities requiring more or less the
concourse of active sight; such as, if we displace and
remove a little farther from the idiot, every day, the
things ordinarily used by him and for which he was used
to look with his hands. The dark room is made the thea-
tre where light will appear at intervals ; sometimes repre-
senting geometrical or other configurations, at other times
simple bright fields for the exhibition of silhouettes, etc.
The same room serves to exhibit fire-works on a small
scale, and the kaleidoscope on a large one. This latter
has more treasures of combinations of colors than imagi-
nation can conceive. If made of large size, motionless
or moving by turns, single or composed of two cylinders
revolving in opposite directions, or one moving, the other
being fixed, it produces the most wonderful attraction for
the sight ; the Institution has no instrument for training
superior to this. Now we take again the balancing-pole.
It was used to create prehension and to do away with
morbid sensibility of the fingers ; in the present case it
will serve as a monitor to the mind, as an urgent warning
of impending encounter. If it reverberates smartly at
first, the better it will call the attention of the child, and
make him careful to look at the pole to appreciate when
it comes, in what direction, at what rate, and how its una-
voidable reception may be managed to save part at least
of its hard contact. This exercise is no more a sinecure

164 IDIOCT.

for the eye than it was for the hand. By these and other
means of the kind w^ accomplish our object of moving
the look, steadying the regard, and deducing intellectual
consequences from what is seen.

When we say that these means and their analogues
succeed in giving an incipiency' to voluntary sight, we do
not mean to convey the impression that it suffices una-
voidably to touch the retina with our own sight or with
wondrous lights, etc., to make the child begin to look as by
miracle. No, we do not promise that ; because this sud-
den result is the exception. More ordinarily the impres-
sion desired takes place slowly after series of experiments
properly contrasted. In the more refractory cases, the
direct individual exercises of the look are to be alternated
with long standings among groups of working children,
whose various . modes of activity attract the attention of
the lower idiot, if not in six months in three yeai's. Then
the use of the sight begins to be one of the elements of a
progress very limited indeed, but not less striking than
beneficial. There is scarcely one child as low as that in
a hundred ; and lower idiocy is aggravated by extensive
paralysis or some rare forms of insanity.

"When we have secured the use of this function, even to
the smallest extent, that little must be instantly applied
to some educational purpose with the help of other instru-
ments adapted to the present incapacity of the child, to
make him appreciate the properties of bodies, which
otherwise fall naturally under the sight of ordinary per-
sons. These properties to be perceived by the sight with

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 165

the help of special .instruments are colors, forms, combi-
-nations of forms, dimensions, distances, plans, etc.

Colors are taught in the dark room with colored window-
panes, as in the school at Syracuse, or with bodies of dif-
ferent or similar colors, assorting by pairs. Cards, rib-
bons, balls, marbles, samples of any sort of colored objects
will answer, provided their similarity and dissimilarity
can be incessantly referred to and tested. Balls and their
receiving cups of the same color, and all sorts of contri-
vances of that kind for pairing colors, may be concur-
rently employed ; care being taken that in trying to
convey to the mind' one property of these bodies, i.e., the
color, some other property of the instrument be not so
prominent, its shape for instance, as to attract the whole
attention of the child to the exclusion of the color ; we
have seen that occur. The familiarity with colors once
acquired by these means is to be applied to things of daily
use or enjoyment, such as wearing apparel, flowers, fruits,
etc., care being taken to present mostly what is neat to
tl^e sight and pleasant to the mind.

Our appreciation of the shape of everything in nature
has its foundation in the knowledge of a few typical forms
to which we refer as matrices for comparison. The sim-
plest of them are circles, squares, triangles, etc., adapting
themselves to their corresponding forms and to no others.
The child, by contrasting the differences, must find the
similarity of these shapes. The same comparison must
be established between solid forms and those only painted,
and between these types and the objects of daily use,
similarly if not identically shaped. The combination of

166 IDIOCY.

forms made up by the juxta oi" superposition of objects is
well presented to the children by the blocks already em-
ployed, with which complex figures are built in plan or in
elevation. Blocks near in form to dominoes can illustrate
this kind of combination, and will give us an opportunity
for graphic descriptions of some of the exercises of object-
ive imitation that we have postponed to describe, but
which we employ so profusely whenever we find it con-
venient.

The child being in front of the teacher, a table between
them, a few blocks piled near their right hands, the
teacher takes one, puts it flat before him on the table, and
makes the child do the same. The T. puts his block in
various positions relatively to the table and to himself, and
shows, not directs, the C. to do the same. The T. puts two
blocks in particular relative positions, and the 0. does the
same each time. What was done with two blocks is done
with three, with four, with more, in succession, till the
exercise of simple imitation becomes quite intellectual,
requiring at least a good deal of attention and power of
combination. Later, the T. creates combinations of two
or more blocks at once, and the C. must imitate all of it
at once ; and finally the T. creates a combination of a few
blocks, destroys it, and orders the 0. to build up the like,
whose pattern he now can find only in his mind.

To relieve the tension unavoidable in these exercises, it
is well to close them by the building on the same prin-
ciple of walls, towers, and other easy fabrics on a large
scale, at which groups of children will work with eager-
ness ; and whose sudden downfall will cause a happy

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 167

excitement. Once in the Pennsylvania Training-School
for Idiots at Germantown, we were studying the case of a
child who could not be induced to move. The matter
with him was not paralysis nor weakness, but extreme
apprehension of any contacts to be encountered by dis-
placing himself. "We left him standing on a spot, when
his friends began to build one of their high towers of
blocks around him; he was our prisoner. A little dis-
mayed but unmoved, he would have stayed there till
doomsday if we had not taken his hand through the blocks
and marched him out of the ruins to the delight of his
fellows. He alone was not laughing. But we ordered
the same thing to be done with other children, then with
him again ; soon he understood the game, took mildly,
according to his nature, his share in the burst of joy,
broke' through the building of his own slow impulse, and
even soon helped in the erection of new ones. Dating
from that event, he certainly became more confident and
more deliberate in his movements and actions.

The Size of bodies is appreciated by measurement ; and
this effected by the sight, by the hand, and by special
instruments. The measurement by sight is our pi'esent
object, and its application to one of the three dimensions
will sufficiently show how it applies to the others. Deal-
ing with objects already known, which do not need de-
scription, we use at first the French Metre, whose divisions
into tenths are rather more sensible than those of the
yard. Next to a stick one metre long and divided on
each surface into ten decimetres, we put another nine
decimetres long and equally marked, another eight.

168 iDiooy.

another seven, till the smallest, which is only one deci-
metre in length. After commencing the comparison with
two sticks, the longest and shortest, we soon mix them
all together on the floor or on a table, we call for them
from the smallest up, or from the longest down, and the
child must choose them, guided by his sight alone, and
range them in order according to their size, verifying
only by the touch what he learned by the look. "What
he can do with the metre we try with the yard, whose
divisions into inches or two inches will task more closely
the compass of his vision. Nevertheless, we are ourselves
sometimes uncertain in our choice among so many sticks,
when the child is not. Few old men have been taught to
appreciate this knowledge. "Where this has been recently
introduced into public schools from the idiot schools, it is
not certain that it has been presented more physiolo-
gically than the exercises of personal imitation.

The notion of Distance takes its rank here, but only in
its elementary form. "When we want a child to appreci-
ate spaces, we separate things of the same kind — books,
for instance ; we place them at different distances from
each other, and we make the child do the same ; first by
imitation, next by command. "When distances are to be
measured in a room, from point to point, from person to
person, or things, the child being the fixed branch of the
compass of measurement, the distant object or point is the
moving extremity of the same instrument. "When this
abstract instrument of measure works well at short dis-
tances, in a medium where the points of repair are familiar,
such as the window, the mantel-piece, etc., we transport

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 169

it into the open air, taking for our points of repair the
nearest trees, houses, fences, etc.

Of all the properties perceivable by the sight, those of
the Plane are the most difficult to acquire, but the most
necessary in education and practical life. On a know-
ledge of the properties of the plane depends our successful
walk or fall, the erection of any structure, the relative
situation of the lines forming drawing and writing, the
delineation of all representations of objects by carvingj
cutting, modelling, casting, and endless varieties of modes
of expressing a meaning by lines on surfaces ; those lines
idealize matter. It will not be, therefore, a loss of time,
if we take great trouble in giving the idiot as clear an
idea as we can of the plane in its relations to human work.

When a child cannot understand a plane, such as the
floor or a table, we know it because he will try to put up
tjiings — ten-pins, for instance, in a variety of oblique atti-
tudes, more or less distant from the vertical. This error
is to be corrected by letting down a succession of plum-
mets falling vertically on the floor or table, between
which the child soon finds the vertical for the pins. Planes,
level or undiilated, are to be made by the hand, spade,
spoon, or roller, on sand, to the great delight of the chil-
dren. The plane for writing or drawing is studied. by put-
ting wafers on various points of a circumscribed plane,
and letting the child do the same on another ; marking
and re-marking exactly the centre, the corners, and other
prominent points of the surface. We come nearer to the
idea of the plane by touching with our index finger, every

prominent point of a limited plane, such as a slate ; the

11

170 IDIOCT.

child doing like us. When he begins to succeed in this
sight-exercise, we put a pencil in his hand, we take one
in ours, and we begin to draw slowly and distinctly a
well marked line from one point of the slate to another —
say from the top to the bottom. This he does also, with
many peculiarities of weakness and deviation. He has
acquired the virtual capacity to draw lines, but he has
not yet the synergy. In this respect, the difference be-
tween idiots is immense. One can lift a weight of fifty
pounds who cannot hold and direct a pen ; another can
work all the day in the field without great fatigue, who
can scarcely read nor trace a faint line on the black-board
without showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion. We
, have seen a child, otherwise active, spend several minutes
in tracing down a vertical line with chalk ; the line was
scarcely visible, though he was helping his right hand
with his left with all his might ; both hands became so
exhausted that they were pearled with perspiration.

The deperdition of force, not by the straining quality
of the work accomplished, but by the intensity of will
employed, shown in these cases, cannot be considered as
peculiar to idiots, but only as extreme in some. A
teacher of Freed men in Tennessee, writes to our esteemed
friend, the Eev. Samuel May, of one of her pupils, a very
intelligent colored blacksmith, that three evenings after
he began to learn his letters, he could read correctly
three pages in a " Wilson's Eeader ;" " but," says she,
" the sweat ran off -his face as if he were working over his
anvil." This is enough to show conclusively that we
must not calculate the abnormal by the normal innerva-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 171

tion ; and that we are to measure the strength of idiots
in particular, not by our standard of fatigue, but by the
special condition of waste of their synergy.

To recommend this almost maternal attention for our
children, we have left them very nearly drawing, that is
to say, knowing how to do it, trying to do it, and yet
unable by want of nervous power. We are now in pres-
ence of a nervous diflSculty, which can be assimilated to
some extent to the deficiency of contractibility which
hindered our first exercises of prehension. As we then
strengthened the muscles, we must now strengthen the
nerves ; and as in the hand these two sets of organs are
exceptionally numerous and delicately blended, if we can
submit the hand to a series of exercises in which the
muscles will be called into play subordinately, but
enough to corroborate the nervous action of drafting, we
shall succeed in giving to that function the power of ex-
pressing fluently and without faintness the meaning of
the mind and the order of the will.

There is more than one way of modifying surfaces by
drawing. If pen or pencil can express our meaning on
surfaces, we may find other instruments that will produce
other kinds of drawings. By them, new surfaces will be
created expressive of meaning as well as the work of the
pencil. Happily these medes of drafting, not at the sur-
face, but into the very substance, by creating new edges
or surfaces, necessitate the employment of a not incon-
siderable proportion of mtiscular contractibility extremely
favorable to the support of the nervous action, whenever
this action is not entirely under the control of the wilt,

172 IDIOCY.

as at the outset of the training of idiots, and in the medi-
cal treatment of similar disorders.

This indication of supporting the failing nervous action
by a certain degree of firmness in the prehension or in
the grasp, is fulfilled hy the following exercises. We
give the children plastic substances, such as soft sealing-
wax, clay, putty, etc., to shape into squares, rounds, or
triangles, or in imitation -of some familiar objects ; taking
care, as everywhere else, to not repeat the same exercise
till it becomes stupefying ; but on the contrary graduat-
ing it to favor, at the same time, mental and manual im-
provement.

We put into the hands of the child a piece of soft
wood to be whittled to certain marks, where the new sur-
faces created by this action will represent some known
form or objects. Soon we dispense with the marks on
the rough wood, and give only a pattern to be copied ;
and later we order such a form to be drawn from the
mere idea our command impresses in his sensorium. To
the knife succeeds the chisel, the hatchet, the straight or
curved saw ; the hammer which plants nails in rows
representing some delineations ; the pin doing the same
work more delicately on paper ; the needle with colored
thread drawing on white muslin nearly like a pencil, etc.

The scissors are among our favorite instruments. Pat-
terns of card or wood are given, and their likeness cut
out from rags or newspapers : firstly, by application of the
pattern on the paper ; secondly, by the standing of the
pattern in front of the child ; thirdly, by its mere presenta-
tion to the sight and withdrawal ; and fourthly, by the

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 173

nomination of the shape that is to be reproduced from
the image evoked by the command.

It ifi very important not to confine these exercises to
individual teaching any more than is necessary for their
strict understanding. This understanding once acquired,
must be carried into group exercises of two or three chil-
dren at first, of many more afterwards, because when close
attention is not so much needed, the healthy stimulus of
competition must be taken advantage of. For every new
progress to be made, we must give the child the advantage
of concentration resulting from individual teaching ; and
for the confirmation of the same, give him the benefit of
the expanded examples and incitements inherent to
group teaching; the mind will be more bent on its object
in the first, the hand will be freer and surer in the second.

There is no end to these exercises in drawing, which
prepare the head as well as the hand for the realization of
ideal types. When we consider that among men there is
not one in a thousand who can use his hands to represent
correctly a meaning, and that in a trade like tailoring or
millinery, excellence of draft is scarcely the attribute of
one in a hundred, we are astonished that the lessons of
substantial drawing taught to idiots have not yet been
carried into the public schools, where they could fill up
the tedious intervals of book-learning. How many young
women and men would like to exchange the knowledge of
the height of the highest peaks on earth or moon against
the skill of cutting in paper, or modelling in wax, the new
ideas which daily die unshaped in their minds, for want
of power of realization by their hands.

174 IDIOCY.

This ability to represent ideas by solid drafting is so
natural to some idiots, that among them and among cre-
tins are found excellent draftsmen, either in the general
sense, or in some specialty. But without aiming at such
superiority for the bulk of our children, we shall be con-
tented if we can bring their hands to the point of express-
ing some simple ideas of form ; and even if only partially
successful in this intellectual attainment, we have given
to their hands the firmness and the precision necessaiy to'
draw and to write.

Then, and not before, we can put with confidence a pen-
cil in the hand of our pupil, which he will seize like us,
with the understanding and the will of making something
come out of it by imitation at first. He puts his hand on
the black-board armed with the chalk as we placS ours ;
his eye looking at us and at the board alternately, as if
asking" for a command ; this is given. We trace a line,
neat, straight, in a precise direction ; he does the same.
We trace a second, a third, a fourth, he also ; he imitates
all our movements ;.the chalk in his fingers leaves the trace
of these movements : that is the imitatory drawing on the
part of the child. On our part, what must it be ? The suc-
cessive production of simple, straight lines in combina-
tions which imply simple relations between them ; relations
which will soon give to this material imitation an intel-
lectual meaning.

To this efi'ect we create the lines, all bnt the first,
which must be a horizontal or a vertical, in relation with
others. For instance, a vertical line being laid, we star
one, two, or three horizontal ones from it, sometimes from

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATIOK. 1Y5

right to left, sometimes from left to right. Parallels must
always be supported in this wise ; and oblique lines cannot
be taught before the two preceding are well executed to
support the oblique at its extremities, forming a triangle ;
and soon our pupil is unconsciously drawing quite compli-
cated figures out of these connected straight lines. But
before this exercise passes from the domain of attentive imi-
tation to inattentive routine, we make two of these con-
nected lines at once ; the child must do the same ; we make
a combination of three lines, he must execute it similarly as
a whole. After this we draw a combination of lines, we
show it to the child, we efface it, and he must reproduce
it by his sole power of imaginative memory.

At a certain stage of these exercises, which can be better
appreciated in practice for each child than in theory for all
of them, the knowledge of the curved line is to be intro-
duced. This must take place when the straight one has ac-
quired sufficient correctness to be above possible confusion.
We teach the curve in various ways. As if it were nothing
more than a harmonious deviation of the straight line, we
support both ends of the former on the ends of the latter.
We try to excite the perception of the undulations inherent
to all curves by repeated examples of the same. When the
child is called to draw curves, numerous copies of these lines
are laid before his sight on the board, and under the ap-
preciation of his touch in solid iigures. But when the
difficulty seems to rest more with the mechanism of
drawing than with its understanding, we overcome that
difficulty by making the child draw curves between two
circles, traced or even solid, one inside of the other, five

176 IDIOCY.

or six inches apart, leaving between them a space for the
child to wind up his curves like an endless thread. Con-
sidering ourself or the child like a compass, whose fixed
branch is the body, whose movable branch is the arm, we
and he soon trace within those two limiting circles peifect
curves. Indeed, he succeeds so well that before long we
have to put him to the practice of the straight lines again,
for fear that he should curve after this every line he draws.
"When these two elements of drawing, the right and
curved lines, are well understood separately, they are used
in combination to produce an unlimited variety of
figures, among which the representation of our letters
has appeared more than once ; so that the child writes
already by imitation without suspecting it.

At this period the illimited and rather fantastic draw-
ing by imitation is set aside, long enough to repress its
unmeaning exuberance, but not enough to let the hand
and sight forget their quickness at it. We set the child to
draw letters after us, each letter as a whole, without ana-
lyzing its parts; and when he has written a number of
them, we show to him the like printed, and name them,
60 that he could name them himself. After we have
written, compared, and named a few groups of them in a
certain ordfer, we take care to use every ingenuity that
our mind can suggest to vary that order, for fear that lazy
memory should attach the idea or the name of the let-
ters, not to their forms, but to the place they occupy. It
is incredible how many ordinary children fall into that
mistaken application of mnemotechny, caused by ex-
aggerated reliance on localization.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 177

Contrarily to school practice, and agreeably to nature,
our letters are to be written before being read. But soon
both exercises are mingled together, unless for some
special object we effect a momentary separation, easily
detected in the following exposition.

Our method proper of teaching writing arid reading
does not differ from what has been previously said ; we
take advantage here of differences, there of analogies, in
form as well as in sound, to enforce the meaning of each
by its correlative : in this respect our training is, not so
much one of memory, as one of comparison.' The instru-
ments of the method are many. We have seen the best
of all in operation ; it is the hand, creating its own read-
ing matter. But we shall use concurrently the follow-
ing appliances, with others too numerous to mention.

"We use two alphabets, one solid, the other printed ;
the first adapting itself to the shape of the second, the
second on cards, easily placed or displaced, on a frame in
columns, in groups, or scattered. The very lowest be-
ginners when they have distinguished a circle from a
square, can be put to this alphabet. "We proceed in this
wise :

The child is placed before our alphabet-board ; we put
before him the three letters I, 0, -4, in relief, and the
same printed on cards are set in the board. "We give
him the solid i", at tlie same time that we name it, to be
placed on the painted one. He may either let it drop, or
puf it on another printed letter, or put it on the proper
letter, but improperly, .or he may superpose it correctly,
in which latter case the exercise is continued without in-

178 IBIOCY.

terruption. The failures above referred to are corrected :
the first by making him pick tip the dropped letter till he
puts it down in its place rationally and willingly ; the
second by ourselves covering severally each printed let-
ter with its solid similar, to show him well the modus
operandi ; the third by patiently correcting the wrong
superpositions ; and better yet, by directing and teaching
gently with our hands, his fingers to do that correction.
At every movement of his or of ours, we have been nam-
ing with emphasis the letter moved. All the letters have
been presented in series formed in view of apposing their
difference and analogy of form ; as / to C by contrast ;
to Qhj similarity, etc.

Without leaving to these actions and new impressions
of difference and analogy of form, the time to be effaced,
we change the order of the solid letters on the table, and
of the printed ones on the board, and we ask him for the
solid / which, being given by the child, we ourselves
carefully superpose to the printed one. Then again
changing the order of the two series of letters, we ask
for A, for D, for 0, again and again till he gives them
without mistake. When the child is mute and not deaf,
our teaching of reading cannot go farther. Otherwise, at
this time we begin to point out one of the three letters ;
he names it, and pairs it with its like. This is only pas-
sive reading, would suggest the critic. Yes, mostly or
nearly so. But is not this quasi-passivity an improve-
ment on not reading at all ; and cannot it be made the
beginning of spontaneous reading ? That is the question.
All our present training tends to that result.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 179"

There is no necessity of following this plan here farther
than the letters ; nor of describing the various Eeading-
machines which may be found in all class-rooms, and are
used once in a while when their peculiar ingenuity meets
the peculiar difficulties of a case of idiocy. The alpha-
bet above described would not itself deserve to be recol-
lected if its virtue were limited to the teaching of read-
ing. Its specific value resides in the power of giving ac-
curacy to the sight ; its letters being presented by our
method to this sense in all their relations of analogy and
difference of shape, with this special object in view.|

The small cards, bearers of a single syllable or word ;
the lai'ge cards showing whole series of the same, mono-
syllables . in columns, or scattered in various orders, are
more practical for reading. Those we used twenty-eight
years ago could not be found anywhere, and were of our
own manufacture ; images corresponding to them were
printed expressly for our children by the kindness of a
friend ; previous to 1840 there was no such thing that we
were acquainted with. These cards have since spread
everywhere ; and images for children are plenty, if not
always appropriate to reading and representation lessons.
Nevertheless since so many years the method and its
means and instruments have progressed in skilful hands.

Confining ourselves at first to individual teaching, we
use the small cards with a monosyllable or short word
on each, as letters have been in our alphabet for passive
lessons in the beginning, for active reading with speech
as soon as we can, always observing the rule of changing
frequently the order of situation, and nomination as well.

180 IDIOCY.

Exactly in the same manner, the teaching of polysyllabic
words follows that of the monosyllabic ; this is the ra-
tional progression.

But, considering that the method of Jacotot, introduced
into the United States by K. W. Emerson,^and into the
If. T. State Asylum for Idiots by Dr. "Wilbur, disregards
the teaching of the alphabet as introductory to reading,
and is in successful application in Syracuse, we would not
have insisted upon the necessity of maintaining the old divi-
sions were it not that their slowness in teaching to read
does not impede nor diminish their importance as instru-
ments of acuteness, to give precision to the sight. And
as our fundamental object is not so much the teaching of
one thing or of another, as the furtherance of each func-
tion and its utmost elevation in the rank of intellectual
power, we have kept the old series of comparisons elicited
from the letters and monosyllables as one of our best sen-
sorial exercises. Otherwise, subsequently to the demon-
stration of the practice of Syracuse, reading is taught
first as last by words. The word written is read, the
word pronounced is written ; the speech flies like the
thought, writing immobolizes and perpetuates both.

Before proceeding farther we resume the exercises
involved in reading. Cries have been converted by music
into voices ; articulation was derived from personal imi-
tation concentrated in the organs of speech by mimicry ;
speech was treated as a combination of voice and articu-
lation enforced by wants; writing was deduced from ob-
jective imitation ; reading was the result of the combina-
tion of both speech and writing ; letters are taught only

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 181

as a study of contrast and analogy between their shapes
or between their sounds ; reading begins by words, each
word having a shape or configuration, a name, and a
meaning : hence solidarity is established between writing,
reading, speaking, and soon understanding ; so that the
learning of one of them carries with it the knowing of all.
Written words are presented according to their difference
or analogy of form ; the teacher names them and the
child points them out or writes them. Words pronounced
by the teacher are written by the child ; series of words
are formed according to certain similarity or difference in
their letters ; other series are formed according to certain
difference and analogy in their sounds when spoken.
We said every word has a meaning; to write and to
read implies the understanding of that meaning ; every-
thing short of it is an imposition by the teacher, or an
infirmity of the pupil : let us remember this, since we shall
presently begin to teach more especially reading proper.
Words such as hread, apple, hook, are put on cards
before the child, and read by us aloiid. Their order is
changed, they are read again, and the child is invited to
put his index upon each word named. The order of the
position of the words and of their nomination is altered at
each turn, so that he can derive no remembrance from place
nor series ; but must receive his ideas from the word itself.
When they are named, the very objects, bread, apple, and
book, are placed on the table in presence of their printed
or written names, and are pronounced also in this man-
ner : 1st. We say " hread" he must show the bread and
appose it to its written name. 2A. We show a piece of

182 iDiocT.

bread, he must say " Iread," and put the word bread on
the piece. 3d, "We show him the written name, he must
show us the piece and give the name, etc.

When one of these three names is known, we put a new
one in its place in that series, or we form entirely new
series. "When the object itself cannot be procured, its '
image will do even if imperfect ; for it is wonderful how
the power of imagining of children, even of idiots, soars
above our feeble power of imagery. This juxtaposition
or even identification of the three, four, or five forms of
things, i.e., their name written, printed, and pronounced,
their images printed and carved, and their own selves in
substance, such are the forcible instruments by which
the first ideas may be forced through the senses into
the mind. Thus let us open to our pupil, by reading,
the possession of everything which comes within' the
range of his prehension and comprehension ; nature is his
book, and his fingers are the printers.

On this capital point let us acknowledge that we are
too prone to continue farther than is necessary, the process
of passive teaching required at the outset. We too often
act or speak when the child might have acted or spoken
himself if we had more insisted upon his doing it ; given
him a little time instead of hurrying ; supported his hesi-
tation instead of prompting him ; and given no hint but a
kind, encouraging look ; this warning cannot be too
strongly impressed, neither the next. This is against the
teaching ^er dbsv/rdum, favorite with professors and trans-
ferred into the Institution by our teacher, unsuspecting its
bad influence. She spreads before her pupil a dozen of

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 183

words on cards, and pointing with her finger to the woi'd
moth&r, for instance, if the child does not make it out and
remains silent, she points to it again, saying, " "What is
that ? Is it father ? " and the child will very likely mut-
ter the word father, to the great mortification of his
teacher. Bat the apparent mischief is only a particle of
the real one ; the error is to be, and is corrected ; the
child will read the word mother ; but who will give him
back the trust that he had in his teacher previous to that
false nomination ? Henceforth, each time that she ex-
plains or affirms anything to him, he will look and listen
suspiciously to know if there be not a snare where the
good girl puts her most candid interpretation ; distrust
has sneaked in where confidence should have reigned ;
let us be candid with our simple children, if we want to
teach them not reading alone, but truthfulness.

Next to this active, but close and attentive reading of
the individual child, is the other, off-hand and rotatory,
in which a written word passes from hand to hand, and is
pronounced successively aloud. Though this is incon-
testably a reading lesson, it stimulates more the function
of the voice to read aloud than that of the sight to read
attentively. To make it effective it must go on rapidly,
and emit by the stimulus of example a large volume of
voices exciting one another ; if well conducted, the chil-
dren are particularly delighted with it.

Individual and group reading must be alternated, be-
ginning with the first. Individual reading may be more
insisted upon in cool, mild weather, and in the morning
when attention causes no effort, and is not exhausted ; on

184 IDIOCY.

stormy days and in the afternoon, dulness is prevented
from settling down upon the class-room by group teach-
ings : where a child alone would but express himself lan-
guidly, children will support each other in vocal action.

But in reading, as in all intellectual operations which
take place immediately through the senses, we have to
distinguish for the perfection of the teaching, the func-
tion from the faculty. This temporary analysis favors the
development of the two aspects of the same capacity.
By striving to give at the start correct perceptions
through a sense, we insure correct impressions to the sen-
sorium, impressions which will be the premises of sound
judgment for the mind. "What is called error, scarcely
ever depends upon false conclusions of the intellect, but
mostly on false premises gotten from incorrect percep-
tions ; so that the faculty of judging is not so often the
culprit, as is the function of observation : what is badly
seen is wrongly judged of; and our future is too often the
stake we pay for the error of our senses. It is nearly
certain that the good, though limited common sense
shown by the idiots educated since more than twenty
years, must be to a great extent attributed to the particu-
lar pains taken to give them correct perceptions, and
consequent ideas, through the physiological method, par-
ticularly in reading.

We come now to the subject-matter of reading.
Though the subject of reading lessons must be of interest
to the child, it must not be so familiar, except at the out-
set, as to lead him, by association, to the utterance of
words not at the time before his eyes : for in tliis train

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 185

imagination, memory, or desire would substitute their
objects to the reading matter.

On the other hand, the subject of the reading must not
be too much above the comprehension and the habits of
the mind to be taught, otherwise the lesson, besides its
mechanical object, would proffer no stimulus, through
curiosity, to intelligence.

But if it is difficult to choose reading-matter fitted to
ordinary children's minds, how much more difficult it
must be for idiots. Aware of this difficulty, in the first
lessons in reading, we have been confining our teaching
to persons, objects, and feelings strictly appreciable by
the idiot. His reading has been one of nomination,
whose series begins at the point of comprehension where
we find him every morning, ending soon where he ceases
to understand. Inside of that range, we make him nomi-
nate by writing, reading, and spontaneous appellation
everything that he can comprehend ; and we treat him,
in respect to the identity of knowledge with nomination,
as our first father was treated. " The Lord God formed
every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and
brought them unto Adam to see what he would call
them ; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature,
that was the name thereof." — Genesis ii. 19. Therefore,
dh initio, there has been no presentation of new objects,
i.e.f discovery, without instant nomination ; no nomina-
tion which was not simultaneous with discovery. In the
same spirit of identity, whatsoever we name a new object,
when first presenting it to an idiot, that is for him the name

thereof. He had the perception of the object, we give him'

12

186 IDIOOT.

its name ; and the correlation of both abides in his mind aa
identification of the image and name, elementary idea or
notion.

Such is the teaching of nomination by writing, reading,
and speaking, which has arrested us so long ; and which
will be terminated when we shall know the name of
everything that is, and is to be.

Trusting to the biblical narrative farther, we see that
our parents were not instructed as to the qualities of
things, but permitted to appreciate them all, except those
■of a single tree, of which they were forbidden to eat un-
der penalty of death. "Whatever has been the cost of
their transgression, henceforth every generation, distrust-
ing past experience, wants to appreciate the qualities of
things with its own instruments of perception ; and obser-
vation, not trust, became the foundation of all Science.
The idiot, if he can only move about, is no moi'e ready
to rest satisfied than his mother was. If we put a pippin
or a crab-apple before him, tell him which is sweet and
which is sour, he will not hnow it till he has bitten at both :
that is Knowledge. At the present point of the training,
we must take advantage of this natural instinct, and bend
all our efi'orts to give accuracy to the appreciative capa-
bilities of our pupil. The notion, or knowledge of iden-
tity of things, given with the name, like a baptism, suf-
fices but an instant to human curiosity. The lowest idiot is
not content with distinguishing a round or a square ; he
wants to touch it, or lick it, to discover if it be besides
rough or sweet ; in fact, if it has other qualities than those
of shape. Can we shut our eyes to this lesson ; and must

PHTSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION, 187

we not try, after having taught the identification by nomi-
nation, to teach the appreciation of properties by a sys-
tematic study of qualities ?

The qualities to be studied mostly in reading, are of
different orders. Those perceived in our previous gym-
nastics of the senses, particularly the pleasant ones, may
be first employed, but not indulged in, longer than neces-
sary to fashion the analytical power of the child. Con-
trarily, we reserve our absolute exclusion for the qualifi-
cations founded upon would-be science, and definitions
more Greek than sensible. They abound in books written
to spread the otherwise excellent system of object lessons.
The definition of the horse reproduced by Dickens in
*'Hard Times," to show how idiots might be made in
England and elsewhere, would correct this, if pedantry
could be cured.

In object lessons, as practised for idiots since 1837, the
intellectual and moral qualities and bearings have always
been made prominent above the more physical properties
of objects. This has been insisted upon in our books and
practice for nearly thirty years, as elevating the character
of the training and preparing the child for the moralities
as well as for the materialities of life. After seeing how
animals enjoy -hours of nature's harmonies, who could
name the brute which does not see in the grass anything
more than food ; and after seeing the look of the calf at
its mother, think that it loves her only for her milk ?
Material education alone can make a child see only the
"old man" in his father coming home with the provi-
sions earned by his day's labor ; and the " old woman"

188 IDIOCY.

in the worn-out creature who has watched him by night,
worked for him by day, till her heart alone is beautiful. Hfe
is not a teacher who cannot mate the most material fact
transude its morality, as the almond does its oil under intel-
ligent and warm pressure. He is a teacher who cannot see
apod of peas without opening it by its spiritual articulation,
letting out of it as much food for the mind of his children
as there was in the body in the seven loaves and iishes.

If we insist so much upon the moral turn to be given
to the part occupied by the system of object lessons, or
qualification lessons in our method, we shall insist not the
less upon our disavowing all paternity of this same system.
We found it working in the hands of Itard. Pestalozzi
applied it at the suggestion of Jean Paul Eichter, who
might have been its originator if he had not read of it in
Eousseau. This is the simple truth about the origin of the
object system which could not be found in the " Home
and Colonial Schools " of England, nor in Oswego prior
to its application at Bic^tre and Syracuse. In our estima-
tion, founded upon personal practice, the object lesson, or
to speak more correctly, the qualification lesson, derives
its most important advantages from its degree of idealiza-
tion. In the hands of teachers who feel nothing but
matter, it is a very lowering instrument ; in those of a
teacher who loves to disengage an idea from its husk, it is
an effulgent means of elevation. "Who could tell the dif-
ference between the child taught to remember the n&mes
of the ultimate substances contained in a vegetable, and
the one taught to produce it; or between one taught to pro-
duce it for the satisfaction of his own appetite, and another

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATIOiT. 189

doing the same for the support of children more destitute
than himself.

One of the properties of things is to be in isolation or
in collection ; and in virtue of the law of contrast, it is
impossible for us to feel with any of our senses any one
thing alone : one is felt because some other thing is felt
as being or not being next to it. The first notion of ego
implies the existence of a non -ego / these are complemen-
tary terms, numerically speaking, one and two. We
cannot compare two terms without finding their compari-
son, third term which makes three ; and from the binary
and trinary combinations issue mathematics.

The greater number of idiots cannot count three,
though among them, or more properly speaking among
imbeciles, are found children wonderfully skilled in the
mechanical arrangement of figures and in calculations of
various sorts. This automatic genius does not belong to
them as a class, nor imply in its rare possessors any
susceptibility to general improvement. We teach idiots
numeration with objects and qualities more than with
figures ; and cyphering with both ; fractions in particular
are ail substantiated. But between the extreme of sim-
pleton mathematicians and the majority of idiots who
realize only very limited combinations of numbers, chil-
dren are found whose idiocy being due to deficiency of
perception more than of understanding proper, take in
the course of their training a healthy mental growth,
capable of being applied to many objects of learning,
mathematics among others. These children are easily
difitinguished from puny prodigies by a general, not a

190 IDIOCY.

special adaptation of tlieir newly acquired faculties.
They were affected with extensive paralysis and contrac-
tures, or deprived from birth of steadiness of touch, or
sight, or of hearing ; or simply they were arrested in their
development by superficial idiocy. One of our pupils m

the hospital of the '^ IncitraUes," in 1842, M- , and

Ifattie and Willie in the New York State Asylum, all
three very degraded before admission, proved to be of
that class. "When the impediments to their perceptions
were removed, their minds shone brightly, the more so if
we take into account the effect of their incapacitation
from infancy. These children are worse treated by their
infirmities than others, because they seem eonscioBS of the
impediment which keeps them down. They deserve, if
possible, more care and judicious training than any other
class ; nnfortunately it is too easy to leave them below the
point of their natural aspirations, because the means of
intellectual communication with them are difficult to esta-
blish and painful to sustain. On the other hand it is too
tempting to develop in them, as in show-boys, the power of
mathematics, of music, or of mechanics, to make them
stars among the clouds of idiocy at the expense of the
even and useful perfectioning of their general capacity.

Concurrently with being made familiar with ideas of
names, qualifications, and numbers, idiots need to receive
a distinct idea of what actions mean. Men and things
are constantly connected and disconnected by actions ; and
we express these actions by verbs. If one child does not
understand the meaning of the grammatical verb we can
make him understand action by ours or his own. For

PHTSIOLOGICAL ED'crCATION. 191

instance we have an idiot atid an apple before us. We
write the name of the child and the word apple on the
black-board, leaving some room between the two words,
and we put the child near enough to the apple to enable
him to act in relation with it. Then we write between
the two words the verb " take," and he takes the apple.
We successively write, " let go," " roll," " raise^" etc. ;
the child does with the apple all the actions indicated by
these written and changing verbs. Then one idiot writes
the verbs and another does the actions, always establish-
ing all the possible associations between the subject and
the object, by the interference of as many verbs as possi-
ble, and of as many children as we can, to render the
exercise lively and active without confusion. ,

The circle of these actions is much extended as soon as
the pupil is able t>o understand the relations established
by prepositions. No illustrations could do it more felici-
tously than those engraved in Sadler's " "Pratique de la
Langue Fran^aise." This simple woodcut, expressing the
relative situation of birds in connection with a cage, was
pointed out to us by Dr. Wilbur as the best means of
teaching the preposition to idiots, and we have no doubt
that he lias by this time realized, on a large scale, the
miniature teaching of prepositions which pleased us so
much in that book. To teach this part of speech in our
old way, two appropriate words, written on the black-
board, are connected with successive prepositions, each
one expressing a relation that the child must establish,
and which is written, as was done previously for the
verb.

192 IDIOCY.

Pronouns are to be substituted for nouns, and articles
for numbers as often as necessary to their comprehension.
Participles are nothing but adjectives, and treated practi-
cally as such. Adverbs are another sort of adjectives
applied to verbs. Interjections are taught practically by
transferring to the black-board those which come out
naturally from the chest. Interrogations are understood
by bein'g answered. In these matters the danger is not
to teach too little, but too much ; the want of compre-
hension being worse than absolute ignorance. We are,
besides, under no obligation to go beyond the limits of ele-
mentary education. Even at the happy time when our chil-
dren enter into the conventionalities of common life, and
of primary or classical education, nothing compels us to
follow them in their new career, but with our best wishes,
and the founded expectation that ordinary teachers, for
ordinary teaching, will prove more competent than our-
selves.

Moreover, if we have done elevating the functions to
the intellectual excellence of faculties, we have not yet
finished educating the faculties' as if they were simple
functions. Accordingly, we mean for the present to call
attention to the training of the two most general facul-
ties — Memory and Imagination.

It is evident that whatever pains we take, and what-
ever method we employ to teach idiots, our lessons would
leave but a fugitive impression without the help of mem-
oi'y. This faculty is limited, but not perverted, in idiots
as it is in some bright children, who assert in good faith
things which could never have happened. If idiots evei*

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATIOlSr. 193

told what was not true, it had been imposed upon their
honesty ; their lie was the earnest homage of their truth-
fulness. It is quite common to find among them memo-
ry restricted to some order of faculties, such as musical
imitation, counting, mechanics. These one-sided idiots
may be taught almost anything in the line of their favorite
recollection, but nearly nothing else. Some of them, for
instance, will learn from well-meaning but unthinking
attendants, long pieces of poetry, the names of our Presi-
dents, of all kingdoms, etc., whilst they cannot say a
word of themselves, nor remember what they have eaten
for dinner, nor answer a question otherwise than by re-
peating the final word of it ; but among these diversities
there is deficiency, no error. Consequently we have to
develop here or there, more or less, but not to redress
this faculty.

Previouslj'^, we have not instituted any special training
for the development of memory ; but in all our exercises,
the introduction of the mnemotechnic element could
easily be perceived ; for we were constantly presenting
and representing, comparing and reconsidering, inducing
and deducing, impressing and provoking expressions;
making sure, by all means, that the impressions were re-
ceived with fecund associations; and also that besides
leaving their mark in the sensorium, they might be
evoked at any time when wanted. This was no memory
by rote which brightens an exhibition, but was our steady
support from one progress to another. Nevertheless,
whatever may have been the stringency with which we
enforced these incidental impressions and evocations, they

194 IDIOCY.

had not the pointedness of purpose which is necessary
when we want to attain a special object, and which could
only be obtained by special modes of training.

When we wish to cultivate the memory by some direct
process, we must first choose the remembrance — matter
most likely "to please the child and to make an impression
upon him ; and secondly we must train the memory in its
double aspect of perceiving and expressing the impressions :
we must train both, at first, as if they were independent func-
tions whose convergence produces later the complete faculty ;
as, truly, impressing and evoking past events or images are
nothing else. "We therefore bring the attention of the
child to a class of facts or feelings in three circumstances —
at the time when they take place, after they are accom-
plished, and at the time they are to represent themselves or
to be reproduced by him. What he likes to eat, what
he does with most pleasure, and by contrast what he dreads
the most, are the proper objects of these first impressions :
primary pabulum for recollection. We impress them by
pairs, according to the association of feelings they may
produce ; later we graduate them according to progressions
in ascending or descending series, a few or many at a time ;
we give a meaning to the formation of these series as well
as to the simplest fact or image recollected ; and we habi-
tuate the mind to remember, not for remembrance's sake,
but in view of some end to be accomplished thereby. By
all means, all that we present our child to treasure in his
memory at this period, must be something which he will
have to do again, or whose moral or orderly suggestions
shall have a bearing on his future conduct. Memory in

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATIOIT. 195

this series becomes the inward monitor of actions, of daily
habits, and of external life. In this line we must not be
afraid to show some vulgarity. This order of recollections
will bear on very low facts indeed. We have begun by
asking our questions as if it were to the stomach ; we inter-
rogate the senses, and the lowest calls of Nature, if any-
thing can be called low in her ; we ask the feeling of cold,
of pain, of fatigue ; we put our questions to the quick; as
when the hands nearly freeze, we ask what may keep them
warm ;• the recollection of mittens or of a stove will sug-
gest itself to the dullest mind. We insist particularly on
leaving to the child strong memorial impressions of the
value of time, moriey, food, fuel, clothing, light, home,
labor ; we make him tell and repeat all the associations of
these powers, with his own comfort and duties, with: the
happiness or misery of others. We keep him informed of
the changes which occur in these matters by law, recur-
rences, or accidents. This is taught in priva;te or in group,
alternately in action, and by actions when possible : chil-
dren are so sensible to examples taken from among them-
selves.

After having brought this class of commonplace and
daily recollections to the working point, till it begins to
bear practically in the lives of the children, by govern-;
ing their habits, we pass, if the growing intelligence of
the pupil permit, as it generally does in due time, to a
class of recollections, if not more useful, at least more
elevated and far-reaching in their object. In the series we
now leave theoretically behind, the retaining and combin-
ing of recollections was promoted by a natural desire of

196 ' IDIOCY.

comfort, of order, of recurrence — was, in fact, synchronous
with our animal appetites. Instinct was the main lever of
memory, producing regular habits, etc. In the series we
are abstractly entering now, for the first time, the gre-
garious or social element has overstepped the limits of
the instinct. The outside world has effected a lodgment
in that skull once the domain of the solitary I. The in-
tellectual faculties, strengthened by external accretion
through the senses, are no more subservient, but com-
mand, and now exact from them the nutriment necessary
to convert the physical into moral impressions, and to
develop the sense of kindness, of justice, of the beautiful
and their kindred. At this point memory looks so differ-
ent from what it is in most animals, or in men unfortu-
nate enough to be shut up in natural idiocy, or in arti-
ficial imbecility by ignorance and egotism; it is so
elevated and so much of a generalizer ; it is so potent
to reproduce images, even of the abstract, with the
vividness of creation, that its name is henceforth imagi-
nation.

Imagination, like primordial memory, evokes, and to
some extent may repulse feelings or images ; but by a
kind dispensation the image of our pleasures is more
vivid and more easily evoked than that of our pains.
That imagination, not only of what is called the lowest
order of phenomena, but of the highest intellectual cast
and abstraction, is the result of comparison between true
sensations, is evident. Men of the greatest imagination,
like Homer and Milton, not only had observed im-
mensely before their blindness, but that infirmity pre-

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 197

venting the formation of new sceneries, permitted them
to reproduce with more exactitude and vividness than
other poets the wonderful images painted behind their
cecity. On the other hand, persons congenitally blind
cannot form images of what can only be perceived by
the sight, nor congenital deaf mutes have ideas of so-
nority. And idiots who are, in the proportion of their
native infirmity, deprived of sensations like the blind or
the deaf, are altogether in the same proportion incapable
of memory or imagination ; but as soon as, and as much
as their senses begin to perceive, their mind begins to
remember and to imagine. So the rule is, no ideas
nor images without previous perception.

That idiots can be made to imagine as well as remem-
ber is proved by the rapid development and correctness,
under a physiological training, of their aspirations for
what is beautiful, right, and worth loving. It is imagi-
nation which teaches them to try to please us, because
they see our face lighted with hope and faith in their
progress. It is imagination which makes them try new
contacts, to receive new impressions, and compare
these to the old ones. It is imagination which impels
even the low idiot, once under training, to share his cake
with another child and to look intensely, not at his
mouth, but at his eye, to see in it the gleam of pleasure
of which he wants his share as a reward. It is by
favoring the creation and the recurrence of such impres-
sions that intellectual wants are created. Soon the cliild's
mind needs food as well as his body.

Considerhig the bearing of this part of the training, we

198 IDIOCY.

must, as early as possible, cultivate the formation and
expression of images, commencing as low as necessary,
as we did for memory proper. Here pictures, recita-
tions, dialogues, and animated narratives find their place ;
adding forms to facts, colors to forms, movement to the
whole. And as imagination is not complete, since re-
ceiving impressions it does not return them, the idiot
must be made to express his impressions as soon as his
face and pantomime testify that he has been impressed.
Henceforth let him receive and send back the images ;
as in reading, the words ; as in the gymnasium, the
balancing-pole ; double current, solidarity, which consti-
tutes the I part of us.

If memory connects the past and the future in the pre-
sent of a single individual, imagination connects the same
with all the race and all time. In this way we conduct
our children, some on the threshold, some on the prosce-
nium, a few in the sanctuary of the unseen pantheon
where everything which is, is as if it were not ; and where
everything which is no more, or is not yet, may be sum-
moned into existence. JFrom the feeling of pressure on
the tactile organs which taught prehension, to our feelings
of duty towards our pupils which taught them affection ;
from the distinction of the difference between a circle and
a square, and that between affirmation and negation, or
between right and wrong, we have followed a continuous
path, beginning where the function awakes to the percep-
tion of simple notions, finishing where the faculties refuse
to soar higher in the atmosphere of idealism.

Perception producing simple notion, faculty producing

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 199

ideas more and more complex and abstract, are the
extreme terms of the chain, beginning at the peripheric
extremity of the nerves, ending in the hemispheres. Per-
ceptions are acquired by the mind through the senses, not
by the senses. This is proved anew every time a new
sense is created, or an old one improved by some disco-
very such as spectacles, telescopes, microscopes, algebra,
compasses, electrometers, etc. It is not that artificial
sense which perceives, it is the mind through it. In our
case, every time we have improved, even sometimes
nearly created, the modes of perception of idiots, their
mind has begun to perceive phenomena through their new
and improved senses ; and we have been enabled to con-
duct those impressions to the centre where they become
idealized. In this manner all the senses natural or artifi-
cial, physical or moral, are doors to the various passages
leading into the focus of impressions wherefrom radiates
all expression. To facilitate the study, we distinguished
the notions from the ideas as if they were two products of
different functions ; but for the sake of truth we leave
them both what they are, thp incipiency and the conclu-
sion of the operation of a single function ; the function of
reflecting all we can of the world into our micro-
cosm.

Thus education connects a small body with all bodies,
a small intellect with the general laws of theuniverse,
through specific instruments of perception.

This being the law of perception of phenomena, it does
not matter through which sense we perceive ; the same
, operation being entirely from the mind, is always identi-

200 IDIOCY.

cal with itself ; this law is nothing less than the principle
of our physiological method of education.

Thence the law of evolution of the function of the senses
ending in intellectual faculty, rules from the youngest
child to the most encyclopsedic nervous apparatus. A
corollary law to this, is the mode of perception and ideal-
ization of the impressions according to certain conditions,
conformable to the teachings of anatomy and physiology.
One thing at a time, is the law of sensorial perception for
inferior animals. As many things at a time as necessary
to form a complete idea, is the law for the intellectual
comprehension of man. In animals some senses are more
perfect than in man, hence their sensations are more per-
fect than ours; nevertheless, theirs being received in
singleness and registered without associations, cannot
become ideas, because their notions acquired alone, live
or die alone, incapable of fecundation ; the lower animals
are as far down as that.

But we cannot study the progress of sensorial and intel-
' lectual evolution without finding already animals inferior
to mammalia which register their sensations and feelings
in comparison with each other, and with a meaning
attached to them. These animals must receive compared
and comparable impressions, to be capable of combining
them presently or hereafter, to form new judgments and
determinations. The ant, the bee, the spider, the blue-fly
and many more, give evidence of their power of idealizing
notions, and of the rationality of their determinations.
But for the immense majority of animals, the rule seems
to be one perception at a time, whose isolated notion is

PHYSIOLOGICAL BnUCATION. 201

incapable of entering into collections of images, parents
to ideas. Though every observation points to the proba-
ble issue of this difference between man and brutes, as
being only a gradation, whose lowest strata begin lower
than the corals, which know in what direction to build and
propagate, and ends where man does not yet dare to
aspire. However, few minds are prepared for this affirma-
tion, unless it could be supported by the following- obser-
vation :

In the nervous apparatus of animals, the sensory gan-
glia are larger than the hemispheres in proportion to the
development of their respective functions ; sensorial per-
ceptions being- in them more extensive than the ideal
products of comparison. On the contrary, in our human
nervous system, the intellectual ganglia are larger tlian
the sensorial ones in proportion to the predominance of
the reflective and willed above the perceptive faculties.

The following remarks constitute the psychological
corollary to this observation.

The motor of life in animals is mostly centripetal ; the

motor of life in man is mostly centrifugal. But how

many uneducated, or viciously educated men display

none but the ferocious centripetal power of the beast :

while a dog shall affront death to defend his master, that

master may work the ruin of twenty families to satisfy

a single brute appetite ; nevertheless, the motor in the

beast is called instinct, in man soul. "Well, we will say

yes; instinct when a wild, uneducated, or uneducable

stock ; soul when engrafted by education and revelation.

As a generality, however, animals have only a centripe-

13

202 IDIOOT.

tal or individual life ; men, educated and participating in
the incessant revelation, have a social and centrifugal
existence also, being, feeling, thinking, in mankind, as
mankind is, feels, and progresses in God. "What can be
done to a certain extent for brutes, maybe done for idiots
and their congeners ; their life may be rendered more
centrifugal, that is to say more social, by education.

True, this view of our subject and of our race would
not deprive animals of some kind of soul. But our mind
must have already become familiar with that sort of con-
cessions ; since women, Jews, peasants, Sudras, Farias,
Indians, negroes, imbeciles, insane, idiots, are not now
denied a soul, as they were once by religious or civil ordi-
nances. Nations have perished by the over-educating of
a few ; mankind can be improved only by the eleva-
tion of the lowest through education and comfort, which
substitute harmony to antagonism, and make all beings
feel the unity of what circulates in all, life. ■

Contrarily to the teachings of various mythologies of
the brain, and with the disadvantage of working against
the prevalent anthropological formula, we were obliged
at the same time to use most of its terms ; we have devel-
oped our child, not like a duality, nor like a trinity, nor
like an illimited poly-entity, but as nearly as we could
like a unit. It is true that the unity of the physiological
training could not be gone through without concessions
to the language of the day, nor to necessities of analysis,
quite repugnant to the principle ; it is true that we have
been speaking of muscular, nervous, or sensorial func-
tions, as of things as distinct for us as muscles, nerves,

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 203

and bones are for the anatomist ; but after a long strug-
gle with these difficulties, psycho-physiology vindicated
its rights against the feebleness of our understanding, and
the mincing of our vocabularies.

We looked at the rather immovable, or ungovernable
mass called an idiot with the faith that where the appear-
ance displayed nothing but ill-organized matter, there was
nothing but ill-circumstanced animus. In answer to that
conviction^ when we educated the muscles, contractility
responded to our bidding with a spark from volition ; we
exercised severally the senses, but an impression could
not be made on their would-be material nature, without
the impression taking its rank among the accumulated
idealities ; we were enlarging the chest, and new voices
came out frpm it, expressing new ideas and feelings ; we
strengthened the hand, and it became the realizer of
ideal creations and labor ; we started imitation as a pas-
sive exercise, and it soon gave rise to all sorts of sponta-
neous actions ; we caused pain and pleasure to be felt
through the skin or the palate, and the idiot, in answer,
ti'ied to please by the exhibition of his new moral quali-
ties : in fact, we could not touch a fibre of his, without
receiving back the vibration of his all-souled instrument.

In opposition to this testimony of the unity of our
nature given by idiots, since they receive a physiological
education, might be arrayed the testimony of millions of
children artificially developed by dualistic or other an-
tagonistic ^stems ; as millions of ox and horse teams
testified to the powerlessness of steam. The fact that
dualism is not in our nature but in our suflferings, is self-

2.04 IDIOGT.

evident. Ayerage men who oppose everything, were
compressed from birth in some kind of swaddling bands;
those who abhor studj were forced to it as to punish'
ment ; those who gormandize were starved ; those who
lie were brought to it by fear ; those who hate labor have
been reduced to work for others ; those who covet were
deprived: everywhere oppression creates, the exogenous
element of dualism. Of the two terms of " the house
divided against itself," one is the right owner,, the other
is evidently the intruder. We have done away with the
last in educating idiots, not by repression, which would'
have created it, but by ignoring it.

One of the earliest and most fatal, antagonisms taught
to a child is the forbidding of using hi& hands to ascertain
the qualities of surrounding objects, of which his sight
gives him but an imperfect notion, if it be not aided by
the touch ; and of breaking many things as well, to ac-
quire the proper idea of solidity. The imbecility of
parents in these matters has too often favored the growth
of the evil spirit. The youngest child, when he begins to
totter on his arched legs, goes about touohingj handling,
breaking everything. It is our duty tft foster and direct
that beautiful curiosity, to make it the regular channel
for the acquisition of correct, perceptions and tactile accu-
racy ; as for. breaking, it must be turned into the desire of
preservation and the power of holding with the will ;
nothing is so simple, as the following example will de-
monstrate :

Once a very excitable child, eighteen months old^
touching, breaking, throwing everything he could, seemed

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 205

really ready, if he had beea once punished for it, to
become poseeBBed by the old intruder ; but it ■was not our
plan. We bought Unmatched Sewes cups and Bohemia
glasses, really isplendid to look at, and served the child in
one of them, after showing him the elegance of the pat-
tern, the richness of the colors, everything which could
please and attach him to the object. But he had no
sooner drunk than he threw the glass away. Not a word
was 'said, not a piece removed from where' it fell ; but
the next time he was thirsty, we brought him where the
fragments lay, and let him feel more thirst before we
could find another glass equally beautiful. Some more
were broken in the same petulant spirit ; but later, he
slowly dropped one, when, at the same time, he looked
into our eyes to eaitch signs of anger. But there were
none there, nor in the voice ; only the composure and
accent of pity for the c^hild who could willingly incur such
a loss. Since then, baby took good care of his cups and
glasses, finer than ours ; he taught his little fingers how to
embrace with security the thin neck of one, the large
body, or the diminutive handle of others. In practising
these so varied handlings, his mind became saving and
his hands a model of accuracy.

Now that the unity of our plan to connect all the func-
tions and faculties in the unity of manhood, and into
mankind, is fully exposed" to view, we have only a few
words to say about the unity of our apparently discon-
nected means and instruments of education.

"Whatever we have been teaching, and whatever instru-
ments and means we were employing for that object, our

206 IDIOCY.

method proper has been founded upon one principle,
comparison. All our efforts at making the child per-
ceive, were aimed at comparing ; all his actions, com-
parisons ; all our orders comparisons ; all his experience,
comparison. That this principle, which necessitates at
least two terms to produce an idea, is the physiological
principle of education, might be demonstrated by the
success of those who taught, by it idiots otherwise un- ,
educable. 'But as the retired institutions where these
children are improved are not yet familiar to everybody,
let us show, in the evidence given by ordinary children,
that our method of physiological education is nature's
own method of teaching mankind.

The new-born infant, suckling for the first time, is not
satisfied by the breast that he cannot exhaust. Even so
young, he does not live exclusively upon milk, but on
knowledge too ; for if we turn our eyes from the hand
which helps his mouth in forcing out the milk, we see the
other carefully studying with its two surfaces, not only
the form of the opposite breast, but the deflections and
distances between each ; the firmness, elasticity, softness,
and warmth of his new dominions ; we see him following
mostly, for the sake of accuracy, the convex curves with
the palm, and the concave surfaces with the back of his
hand. After a few days, he knows all about it, and
being less eager for knowledge, he moves his hands only
to receive pleasant contacts from the touch of his mother's
skin, or to go farther in search of new discoveries among
the silk, cotton, or woollen fabrics.

The little child, carried for the first time in a forest, is

PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION-. 207

no sooner on his feet among nature's productions, than he
exclaims, " Oh, the big trees ! Oh, the small flowers ! Oh,
the little, little insects ! " passing again and again from
the tree to the moss, from the insect to the tree, till the
whole comparison is registered with all its attributes. If
the child had seen these things individually, and not col-
lectively with their differences, when forgetting the iso-
lated impression of each, he would have lost all of them,
and nothing more would be left ; but having registered,
with the perishable, isolated images, the ideas and feel-
ings resulting from their comparison, it does not matter
much if the isolated images of the things have since
been defaced or not, the image may be gone, but the idea
of it once impressed is felt to this day and for ever with
all its consequences of sylvan tastes, rural tendencies,
and sensibility to the language of the earth.

A boy had grown to the age of six without paying any
attention to size among men ; perhaps, because he and
his kin were of small size. He knew generally that some
men were taller than others, but he thought nothing of
it, nor deduced any ideas from it. However, being once
introduced in a place of worship where a devout old king
was expected, the attention of the child was riveted upon
two immeasurable drummers, separated by a diminutive
fifer-boy, and his eyes, passing from the tall to the tiny
musician, could hardly be led off from these' extreme
forms of humanity to look at the pale king as he stood
in white and gold robes, kneeling in his white stuccoed
chapel. The sound, so broad from the drums, so acute
from the fife, strengthened, through audition, the former

208 IDIOCY.

comparisons of proportions made de visu ; and since, this
simple and imposing pageant now stands in the mind of
the man, matrix of all measurement, as the Egyptian
Pylones of the measurement of the Nile.

These illustrations of the operations of the mind through
three senses — the touch, the sight, the hearing, in chil-
dren whose functions had not yet been distorted by arbi-
trary mnemotechnicai teachings, show the nature of the
physiological teaching to be, not the unity of object, but
the rational comparison of objects, to be taught through
any or all senses. The bird can see farther, the spider
can hear better, the blue-fly can smell more accurately,
the cat may feel more delicately with its velvet paw,
than our children with their coi;responding agents of sen-
sation ; but the beast's sensations, perfect as we sup-
pose them to be, are only connected with a few instincts,
are not connective among themselves nor with past
images, and consequently soon die in their isolation,
being incapable of forming new images and ideas by
comparison, as they do in children.

We may take as an example of that difference, the
effects produced by the fall of rain upon a child and a
bird. It will hasten home both the bird and the child;
but the flight of the former is prompted only by the in-
stinct of security for itself or its young ; and the course
of the latter homeward will be accompanied, besides his
present object relative to personal feeling, motherly in-
junctions, possible penalties, etc., by ideas about rain as
numerous as its dripping drops: rain will beautify the
flower-gardeh ; swell the stream in which he can swim,

. PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 209

where his friend was drowned, etc. ; these drops sliall soon
look like diamond on the grass when the sun shines ; the
rain which fell upon him last winter was chilling ; what
a difference now ; this is warm, it fumes on his jacket ;
warmer it could be inclosed in a boiler, move- trains and
ships, etc., etc. Thus loaded with comparisons, the boy
reaches home later than the bird, but full of ideas in-
duced by this • rain. He may, in after years, forget this
circumstance,, but he will never forget the peculiar im-
pressions and associations experienced and evoked in this
first summer shower.

Children are our witnesses ; unlike animals, they never
perceive single, but compound phenomena ; from sensa-
tional these become instantly idealized by comparison.
Mere impressions being compared, become ideas suscep-
tible of combination, and of themselves producing any
number of new ideas ; of becoming indeed the mother
of actions : for man cannot execute anything that has not
been previously born unto his mind. Sensation per-
ceived like a notion, notion fecundated to an idea realized
in life itself, such is the unbroken spiral of our teaching, and
through teaching, of our action on idiocy. From collect-
ing the sparse powers of muscles and nerves disconnected
by the absence of will, to the gathering of the faculties in
the act of thinking, our progress has been a constant ascen-
sion on the steps leading from isolation to sociability.

Though much more might be said on this subject with-
out doing it full justice, we leave it cheerfully at this un-
finished stage, where the experience of others may be
more proficient to complete it than ours.

PART IIL-MORAL TREATMENT.

Fart III.

MOEAL TEEATMENT.

Long before physicians had conceired the plan of cor-
recting the false ideas and feelings of a lunatic by pur-
gatives, or the cranial depressions of an idiot by bleeding,
Spain had produced several generations of ifionks who
treated with the greatest success all kinds of mental dis-
eases without drugs, by moral training alone. Certain
regular labors, the performance of simple and assiduous
duties, an enlightened and sovereign volition, watching
constantly over the patients, such were the only reme-
dies employed.

" We cure almost all our lunatics," said the good fathers,
"except the nobles, who would think themselves dis-
honored by working with their hands." This tradition,
handed down to us by Pinel, is corroborated by the testi-
mony of Leuret on the present revival of moral treat-
ment : " See what takes place in idiots. There is nearly
always in their brain a vice, acquired or congenital. Is
it by physical agents or by education that one succeeds
in giving some development to their intelligence ? The
medical agents would be of no use ; nobody thinks any
more of using them; but the moral agencies, employed
with discrimination and tenacity, produce, on the con-
trary, in the intelligence and. passions of idiots changes

214 IDIOCY.

almost marvellous. We infer from this that even if there
were a true alteration in the brains of the insane, the moral
treatment would yet offer the best chances of success." *

We need more the support of Leuret's authority than
he needed ours when, being a daily witness to our efforts,
he was pleased to express in these terms his approbation
of the part of our method we are going to expose.

The moral treatment is the systematic action of a will
upon another, in view of its improvement ; in view for
an idiot, of his socialization. It takes possession of him
from his entrance in to his exit from the institution ;
from his opening to his shutting his eyes ; from his acts
of animal life to the exercise of his intellectual facul-
ties. It gives a social meaning^ a moral bearing to
everything about him. The influences destined to give
moral impulse to the very life of the idiot come upon
him from prearranged circumstances, from prepared asso-
ciation with his fellows, and, above all, directly from the
superior will which plans and directs the whole treat-
ment. We have seen, more than once, in the preceding
part, how the moral treatment was blended with the
physiological training. We shall see very soon the same
element acting like a leaven in labors, occupations, plea-
sui-es, or claiming its control over food, clothing, hygiene,
or medical attendance. We find it everywhere ; and it
would be writing the same book over again from another
stand-point to describe the working of this training in all
parts of the treatment. To be brief, we will expose it

* Leuret, Da Traitement Moral de la Folie. Paris : 1840.

MORAL TREATMENT. 215

only as an abstract power, leaving the commentaries and
applications to be determined by circumstances.

The discipline or moral government of idiots, without
differing absolutely from that of other children, has its
peculiarities. A good many idiots cannot understand nor
follow a private discipline expressed by orders, who will
follow the general discipline of a school, by a sort of intu-
ition, as if knowingly ; they seem to comprehend it
through contact with other children. Con trarily, owing
to the isolation of idiocy, and to a want of concert among
idiots, the mass of them, as such, is on an average refrac-
tory to any new impression ; small groups receive it bet-
ter, and individuals best of all. So that individual disci-
pline is at first resorted to, till the group, and then the
mass, are familiar with the regular movement of the school.

To enforce, exact, promote, induce, encourage, lead,
sustain obedience in idiots, severity would be cruelty.
Physical correction is useless, unless blended with the
eradication of the wrong. Punishment is to be avoided
till it be certain that the undei'standing of the wrong pre-
ceded its commission. Repression cannot be avoided ;
let it be employed in its mildest forms. A child could
not be forced to stand motionless, even were his legs
bound, who remains perfectly still in a circle traced with
chalk around his feet. The anger of another changes
into repentance at the sight of his name written on that
part of the black-board reserved for bad records. Indeed,
the means of repression are what the intelligence and
feelings of the teacher make them.

Eecompenses may be given like punishments ; that is to

aiff IDIOCT.

say, provided their meaning be understood. If not, they
speak to the sight, stomach, nostrils, etc., hut not to the
moral sense, and become in regard to it instruments of
perversion.

Caresses are of great power for good or evil, and must
be reserved as rewards and stimuli. But injudiciously
applied, they break the continuity of commenced efforts,
cause a diversion from the task and a relaxation of the
will ; it gives the child an exaggerated idea of his worth,
or of that of his doings, and profoundly spoils his moral
nature; moreover, a number of children cannot be
caressed at all without danger, owing to certain nervous
anomalies. Great discretion and reserve are required
from teachers and others in this respect, for the moral
government of idiots. Here once more we see how diffi-
cult it is to fill the place of a mother ; in her absence
caresses, as an incentive to progress, are not pettings, and
less the selection of pets.

Moral education is nothing else than a revelation ; as
such, its teaching to children by books, or even by comr
mon language, would be a complete failure ; whereas it
is accomplished quite easily, through moral agencies
whose simultaneity is the chef d^muvre of the art of human
training. Though these moral influences proceed mostly
from the ruling will of the master, we must distinguish those
which emanate immediately from his own self, from those
which are the result of intermediate agencies, prepared
by him, or not. These agencies will first attract our at-
tention as putting the child in the best external conditions
to become spontaneous and willed afterwards.

fflUKAJU TKaATMENT. 217

Whatever we want a child to do, and whatever might
be otherwise our special' teaching to that effect, there are
certain moral conditions as necessary to our success as
the technical ones: those we shall at once consider.
These conditions have reference to time, place, and sur-
roundings. The time to command an action, or incite to
it, must be not only favorable, but the most opportune :
as for instance, the exercise of nomination of food must
not only take place at meal times, but before the appetite
begins to be satisfied ; or the appreciation of temperature
must not be made at indifferent periods of the year, but
at those when the child will best appreciate heat, cold,
dryness, moisture, etc. The places where lessons are to
be taken must be not only convenient, but exactly appro-
priate ; thus attention need not be called to any indiffer-
ent object in front of an opening towards a fine natural
scenery ; nor comparison of color tried when the smell is
strongly attracted by odors ; thus, again, solicitations to
activity must be made where there is room enough for
action ; speech provoked where its effect can be appre-
ciated ; the first commands imposed where there can
be no escape from obedience. The surrounding circum-
stances are to be made equally instrumental to our pur-
pose : light or darkness, solitude or multitude, movement
or immobility, silence or sounds, etc., are to be chosen or
prepared in view of tlieir moral influence on the actions
demanded of the idiot. We must remember that our
teaching how to do a thing, is to him of no practical value
if we do not place him in the best circumstances to

accomplish it ; as to put him among other children doing

14

218 , IDIOCY.

tlie same thing ; to let him see them do it without attempt-
ing it himself; to make him imitate the nearest thing to
the one wished of him ; to let him desire what we desire
him to do, etc. The accomplishment of these objects, and
particularly of the last, which implies the fostering of new
volition, will be partly realized by intelligent disposition
of time, place, and scenery, but will be as often due to
the influence that the children will exercise among them-
selves, if philosophically managed.

This moral training of the children, one by many, seve-
ral by one, all by all, is one of the main springs of the
present part of our task. What we cannot command,
another child will incite ; what we cannot explain- to a
child, he will imitate from another; what a group can-
not do after our command, will be done after the exam-
ple of a small child. However incapable we consider
idiots, they can be made to act efficiently one upon an-
other, if we know how to appose the vivacious to the
immobile, the loquacious to the mute, the imitative to
the careless, the affectionate to the indifferent. This ap-
position of children in view of their reciprocal advance-
ment, ought to take place in various ways, according to
the object desired : by groups of equals, by series of one
capable and several incapable, and viae versd, by pairs of
two extremes in aptitude, by one commanding the other
from outside their ranks, by several correcting the
vicious expressions or attitude of whole files, etc. In
these multiform operations of the simultaneous training,
the child who teaches another, in a certain sense teaches
himself more by the reflex action of his will upon his

MORAL TREATMENT. 219

own understanding ; though it is quite certain, besides, that
very many things are taught from child to child that we
could not at all, or not so well inculcate ourselves.

The same remark pertains in relation to the class of
persons who really and motherly attend the idiots.
Though generally quite illiterate, some of these attend-
ants soon develop in the exercise of their functions moral
powers which many educated persons cannot equal, be-
cause sociability, not learning, gives it ; and though this
power is susceptible of being educated, as it is even in
idiots, it looks more like a gift than like an intellectual
faculty. "Whenever that gift manifests itself, by which a
being has an ascendancy over another, we recognize in it,
in all its shapes and transformations, the qualification
for the exercise of moral training; we accept its con-
course, whether perfected by education or not, because
it qualifies its possessor to work with us in some capacity
or another ; wherever found, it is the superior good-will
ready to elevate the inferior one.

The relations which this power establishes, are those of
authority to obedience. "We are aware that these rela-
tions are in a very confused state, as well in schools as in
society. Authority is assumed and denied ; obedience is
exacted and refused, on grounds so opposite that concili-
ation seems impossible. However, putting aside extreme
theories, authority is, like obedience, a mere function,
whose existence is provoked by corresponding incapaci-
ties, ceases when its object is accomplished, and is no
more inherent to the individual who happens to exercise
it, than his coat is adherent to his cellular tissue. This

220 IDIOCY.

mild view of social equality and of fuiictional inequality,
fits exactly the exigencies of the moral treatment of
idiots.

Our authority over them does not derive from our supe-
riority, but from thfe desire of elevating them to our
standard. Hence, we do not make them feel autho-
rity like a pressure, nor obedience like a subjection ; but
we give them every opportunity of exercising the first
themsel-ves in the limits of their aptitude, as well as of
acting under the reflex impulse of the second, whenever
their spontaneous impulse is yet deficient. When we try
to socialize the isolated idiot, we do not mean to teach
him reading, music, etc. ; we mean to give him the sense
and the power of establishing in the limits of his capa-
city, social relations, rwpports sooiaux, whose everchang-
ing scale is expressed by the two fixed words, rights and
duties. Duties being less imperative, in an uneducated
conscience, than rights, we have often to enforce the
former to a certain extent by unmitigated authority, as
was done for mankind, till the child becomes conscious of
the equivalence of these two terms ; the right of one is
the duty of all, the duty of one is the right of others,
Idiocy being isolation, its victims are not expected to be
carried, when already quite old, from their ambient va-
cancy into a world of contacts and associations, creating
incessant rights and duties, without difficulty on the part
of the teacher and suffering on their own. This struggle
would hardly be noticed if the moral treatment were
carried on by parents from the beginning. But far from
this ; when an utter neglect does not prevail, a mawkish

MORAL TKEATMENT. 221

sensibility opposes itself to any effort at improvement :
" The child is naturally miserable enough, do not contra-
dict Rim," says the mother. And the child, as low as we
can suppose him, takes heed of that sickly feeling, and
will never do anything till he is kept for a long time away
from this deleterious tenderness. We have seen idiots,
after a year of obedience and contentment, relapse into
their anti-social habits at the sudden reappearance of the
weak-hearted person who once indulged their idiotic pro-
pensities, and the same children resume their orderly
habits at her exit. But soon, for the most extreme cases,
and always for ordinary ones, authority need not present
itself in its historical features of absolutism, but assumes
more tender forms as soon as it is firmly established.

Nevertheless, whatever may be its form, authority, to
be obeyed, must command ; in the varieties of its expres-
sion, and in their opportunity, resides a large part of the
moral power of the commanding over the commanded.
"When we consider the qualities necessary to render com-
mandment eflTective, we soon discover that those of speech
do not come in the first rank ; at least that its action must
be preceded and corroborated by that of other qualities
which enter for very little, if for anything, into ordinary
language. Therefore it would be useless to proceed far-
ther, without entering into a» complete analysis of the
elements of command, as it must be used with idiots.
Leaving aside the disputable rank of importance of these
elements, we shall simply present them as they come
forth in reality.

The first conditions necessary to render command effec-

222 IDIOCY.

tive are lineaments and shape ; the second, proportions
and attitude. The lineaments of the face or its features,
the shape of the body or its proportions, may offer or
refuse their concourse to command. The defects of the
former are nearly irremediable ; those of the latter
may be corrected. It is thus that certain lineaments
impress the hiiman face with so deep an expression that
no other can ever be substituted ; or are so rigid that no
intellectual or passionate meaning can pierce through
their unmeaningness. ITearly the same thing occurs
with the shapes of the body and its proportions ; some
are only ludicrous,and cannot convey any command ;
others are set natiirally in such attitudes of repose, quiet-
ness, or the like, as to counteract any command to action.
These are only a few of the ways in which features, pro-
portions, and attitude may impair the efficacy of authority.
The exercise of these qualities requires a good organ-
ization, mobility of the parts, and a fair sensibility, easily
controlled by the will : with these advantages, the face
and body are ready to command.

Though the eyes are a part of the features, their office
is so important that they are to be consided separately.
The look is the passionate centre of the physiognomy ;
all the other parts coordinate their expressions to its,
unless skilfully contracted^ into a mendacious expression,
which the eye can rarely im.itate. The influence of this
organ, as an instrument of moral training, cannot be
overrated, whether we consider it from the master's or
from the pupil's side. For if the look of the former is
alternately inquiring, pressing, exacting, encouraging,

MORAL TREATMENT. 223

caressing, etc.,, the look of the latter is avoiding, opposed,
submitted, irate, or grateful, borrowing its expressions,
from feelings incited by the former. To obtain this re-
sult, the master's look must have taken possession of the
other, have steadily searched, penetrated, fixed, led it;
and here the constant use of the look, already described
in the physiological training, is found corroborated by its
use in moral training, and vioe versd.

The influence of the limbs on the effectiveness of com-
mand is equally distinguishable from that of the body in
their ensemble. The way in which we stand in front of a
pupil is not indifferent ; and our foothold tells pretty well
the degree of our determination. In this respect the
various positions of the legs, and consequently of the rest
of the body, are very instructive. How many things our
attitude alone will command. "We can stand before an
idiot so that he will remain quiet ; we may stand by him
so that he shall hasten his steps, or dignify his deportment,
etc The arms and hands are more powerful yet, at least
for the command of special movements. The finger
directs, averts, corrects, threatens ; the band excites,
restrains, forwards, stops, puts down, nearly all expres-
sions of activity. A waving of the hand cheei-s and
encourages ; a warning of the finger cuts down an inci-
pient action : with its rise and fall it rules the tide of
commanded or forbidden manifestations.

But how far is the easy, monotonous, inexpressive ges-
ture, which hardly accentuates our ordinary language,
from impressing the idiot, not only with our meaning but
with our wilL , Gesture then must be subjected to a spe-

22 i IDIOCY.

cial education to acquire precision, correctuess, quickness,
■cabundauce and emphasis ; to become capable of speaking
of itself, or to complete language ; and to assume the
force and fluency of an oration that the eye shall follow
in all its details as the ear follows a spoken one in its
meanderings : on this condition gesture becomes one of our
moral powers.

When the parts of the body, not only those studied
above, but all fibres, are so harmonized for the mnte ac
of command, there comes forth the speech, l^ot tha,
speech is necessarily commanding ; like gesture, it is rarely
sojperse, and requires a good deal of art for its matura-
ration. Taking away the language of conyersation, in-
quiry, reply, narration, discourse, recitation, whose ex-
pressions are unfit for our object, what is left of ordinary
speech to accomplish it ? Yery little, indeed ; nothing
but the potential capacity of speaking as few men ever
do — not to be understood, but to be obeyed.

For idiots, this difference between the varieties of speech
is deeper yet. Without selecting our illustration as far
down as the children who do not pay any more attention
to language than if they were deaf, we find the majority
of them inattentive, unintelligent, and inobedient to com-
mon Speech. This difficulty admonishes us that language,
even as a means of communication, but more particularly
as a mode of ascendency, is to be heightened above its
ordinary expressions to impress idiots. Voice and into-
nation, articulation and accent, rests and emphasis, are to
be emitted, not as syllables following each other in a
stream of uniform flow, but as musical notes on the

MOEAI/ TREATMENT. 225

superposed keys of the gamut. Purity of voice, variety
of intonation, correctness of articulation, etc., would be ■
expended in vain if they were not entirely adapted to the
desired object, and besides, to the condition of the child at
the time we address him ; so that not only every word is
to be invested with a different physiognomy in each com-
mand, but if the same command is to be repeated, each
word of it must be accentuated at each repetition, accord-
ing to the degree of attention previously paid, or^supposed
to be next given to it. In this manner, an order com-
pletely unintelligible, or unenforcible at a single com-
mand, will become understood and enforced after several
repetitions, each one representing a forcible commentary
of some of its parts, and all of them the whole of it. If
this precept of commanding by words is too simple to be
comprehended, we will exemplify it in this wise. Sup-
pose the objects known, the master orders the child to
put a book on a table. " Put this book on the table," he
says, in the ordinary tone ; and the child, half listening,
does not quite understand, and does not obey at all.
Whereupon the master repeats successively: "Put the
book on the table ; " and the child takes the book, keep-
ing it in his hand, not knowing what to do with it. "Put
the book on the Table," says the master again ; and the
child approaches the table, book in hand, uncertain yet
what relation to establish between the two known
terms — book and table. But the master continues : " Put
the book on the table ; " and the child places it on the
table. The next time he is told to put the slate on the
table, the dumb-bells under it, the balancing-pole near it.

226 IDIOCY.

and the cage above it ; a slight emphasis upon these words
shall suffice ; and more obedience will become easy in
the same progression. By this example we do not mean
to prescribe identically for other cases ; often the verb has
to be presented prominently in various ways ; once for its
meaning, and several times for its commanding value, ex-
pressed by the imperative mood. Moreover, each child
obeys more or less easily ; each child understands differ-
ently the gelations to be established between objects by
his own action ; consequently the same order cannot be
imposed upon two children with the same voice, accent,
etc., in the individual teaching.

But when we come to the training of groups, in which
we require less attention and more spontaneity, in which
we teach less new things than simultaneity of compre-
hension, or of execution, then the moral power of com-
mand assumes more the forms of an artistic action ; the
master really acting before and for an audience, whose
mean average intellect he reaches or misses, according to
his present power, or to the correctness of his own j iidg-
ment at the appointed time. Who has taught idiots, and
not felt once in a while, when sick or laboring under
mental depression, that all his powers failed him, that
those once sovereign commands, which but lately could
carry the children through almost any undertaking, can-
not move them to-day, and fall like broken arrows at
their feet ? This failure, which every one of us has felt,
is the most eloquent demonstration of the reality of the
moral power, by which man acts upon man, as upon plas-
tic matter.

MORAL TREATMENT. 227

Thus command is expressed by attitude, corroborated
by gesture, animated by physiognomy, flashed by the
look, made passionate by the voice, commented upon by
the accent, strengthened by the articulation, imposed by
the emphasis, and carried by the whole power of the
stronger on the weaker will. This power, as expressed
here in the abstract, would be the most wearisome attri-
bute of its possessor, and the heaviest burden on chil-
dren, if 'it were not incessantly modified by circum-
stances, and by passing from one person to'another ; pass-
age in which it loses its tension for the master, and its
grim appearance for the child. Moreover, for reasons
easily understood, and insisted upon afterwards, the
moral power of command must not be always exercised
immediately, directly and from man to man ; but by a
law of descending gradation, it becomes from imme-
diate, mediate, contingent, negative, etc. It is also modi-
fied by habits, studies, moral progress, etc. These forms
and circumstances varying ad vnjmitv/m by their own
combinations with the variety of character, we shall treat
of them abstractly, as if they were invariable : sole expe-
dient to give them a fixed type.

Immediate command, the most stringent, sometimes
painful, must be too often supported at the start by co--
ercion. If idiots were all brought up by intelligent
parents, and in suflScient comfort, they would have no oc-
casion to oppose the asperities of their negative will to
the moral influence which tries to elevate them. But
oppression everywhere creates opposition, and the idiot
as well as any other man tells pretty well the tale of his

228 IDIOCY.

past Bufferings by his degree of resistance to any improv-
ing intervention. No is his first word ; negation is his
first action ; he spends more strength, and often more in-
genuity in resisting than he would require in obeying ;
he will not. He will not, but we will for him. Here is
the point where coercion, when necessary, assumes its
importance. Corporeal punishment is out of the ques-
tion, but compulsion is not, because it must be used, or
idiocy would be stronger than sociability. Coercion is
painful, but less so than the shower bath, cold affusion,
strait-jacket, etd. Imperative command is painful, but
not in the same manner as underhand and fruitless bru-
talities of servants and keepers, doleful lot of uneducated
idiots. On this head let us ponder what Leuret cou-
rageously and frankly says : " My object is not to cure
by one means or another, but by any possible means ;
and if to cure' my patient I must appear hard and even
unjust towards him, why should I recoil from the use of
such agencies ? Should I be afraid of making him suf-
fer? Strange pity I As well bind the arms of the sur-
geon ready to perform an operation necessary to save the
life of his patient under the plea that such operation
could not be performed without suff'ering. A man has
*the stone ; gorge him with flax-seed tea, daub him with
poultices sooner than to relieve him by a painful opera-
tion Whatever be the cost to your personal

feelings, let us have the courage of the surgeon ; our in-
struments are th^ passions and ideas; let us employ
them, even the painful ones if necessary." This rule of
conduct, traced by a master in the art of moral training,

MORAL TREATMENT. 229

is worth treasuring. Leuret says besides ; " Physical
pain serve the insane and idiots as other men, as a means
of education ; it is one of the motors which lead \is to
avoid the wrong and to search for the right ; but it is not
always necessary." And from ' our own experience, let
us add that where coercion is necessary, it lasts but a
short time if properly handled. Indeed, the stronger is
the coercion, the shorter is the struggle, the less is the
suffering., Idiots know this, and whatever may be their
low condition, they understand our meaning, can mea-
sure the opposed forces, and will behave accordingly.

Fortunately, coercion need not often be called" to the
support of immediate command, which is itself an instru-
ment of great power. For, to command immediately
means to command without the mediation of anything or
anybody ; means to employ the forms of command which
can directly touch the child, and take an anticipated
direction of his contingent doings. For instance, if when
ordering an immobile idiot to move the dumb-bells, we
stand in front of him, near enough, and in the most im-
mediate conditions, he will do it; but if for the same
object we stand at his side, though everything else be as
imperative, we see his hand on our side working the
dumb-bell and the opposite hand motionless, disobeying,'
because for the former hand our command was actually
immediate, whilst it was not so for the second. And this
difference is the more surprising if we consider that the
simple balancing of the dumb-bells is a coordinate move-
ment of both sides of the body, whose symmetrical
duality is the rule, whose dissymmetry cannot be pro-

230 IDIOCT.

duced but by a special effort of the will, of which idiots
do not seem capable. Here, evidently, the propulsor of
the child was outside of him ; felt only by immediate
contact and adaptation of our faculties to his organs, and
impotent at a greater distance. But we must remark, as
a warning, that immediate does not mean incessant, and
that this severe form of authority, well managed, does
not require to be used many times, nor in serial succes-
sion, to produce its desired effect ; but that soon the com-
mand may be allowed to drop, as it were inadvertently,
some of its stringent pressure ; or to present itself here in
its armor of battle, there in the more pleasant dress of the
mediate command.

The mediate command is one given in such circum-
stances that the child can disobey it if he choose ; as
across a large table ; from one end of a room or garden to
the other ; in the middle of a group of other children ;
when that command interrupts a more pleasing occupa-
tion ; or when it must be obeyed after a certain time has
elapsed. Thus, in the mediate command, there is a me-
dium of space, time, object, or person between us and the
child ; and moreover, that medium may be temporary or
permanent, insignificant, effective, or absolute, represent-
ing the degree of trust which we can repose in the good
faith and good- will of the child ; it embraces a wide range
of relations.

Before going further in our analysis of the various
commands, we are to see what can be commanded suc-
cessfully or not. To the idiot who will do nothing, we
have to command something; but the nature of that

MORAL TREATMENT. 231

something is, at the start, of the utmost importance. At
first the idiot is determined to do nothing ; we are equally
determined to make him do something ; thus matters
stand. "Will the idiot, or we, succeed ? Can he resist
our will, or can we overcome his negation ? And if we
have the will necessary to succeed, have we the know-
ledge of the series of actions that we can, or cannot,
oblige him to do? For if we cannot enforce our first
command, the idiot will feel superior to us, and many
trials will be in store before the legitimate ascendancy
can be established. Therefore the line of demarcation
between that which the child can safely refuse to do, and
that which he may be obliged to perform, is of great prac-
tical value. "We establish that line by observing that it
is generally easier to repress than to produce actions ; and
that the idiot may sooner be refrained in his instinctive
manifestations, than forced to produce some intelligent
ones : this is the line. Our first orders, therefore, those
which must be obeyed, or else the whole treatment is
compromised, must be chosen from the class of the things
which can be made to be. For instance, we must not
order, at first, a child to open his mouth, for what power
on earth can make him open it if he will keep it closed
against your order? But, on the other hand, what oppo-
sition can he offer to our command not to scratch his
face, if we occupy his hands at a distance, at the same
time that we forbid him to do it. Consequently, let us
only command at first that which we have the power of
enforcing ; and when the child shall feel, after a succes-
sion of such commands, that he must obey, we surrep-

232 IDIOCY.

titiously introduce others of a more arbitrary nature, to
which he submits himself without noticing their differ-
ence from the first ; and soon he obeys any order of ours,
not because he cannot avoid it, but because he feels that
he ought to do it, and finally, because he likes to please
us in so doing.

Then the milder form of command, postponed to make
room for this explanation, will be resumed. The most
comprehensive form is the contingent, conditional, or even
simply optional, which may depend upon actions of the
child, or of others, present, past, or future events ; taste,
and contingencies calculated to leave more room for deli-
beration in obedience. These pre-arranged conditions
must be simple, and immediately precede the required
action ; but later some interval may be left between them,
and more time allowed for remembrance and reflection ;
more to evoke and draw conclusions, and more to think
before acting, to favor the rise of consciousness. In this
degradation of the original command, the passiveness of
primitive obedience has made room, little by little, for the
judicious execution of orders ; this is not yet spontaneity,
but discriminative obedience.

At this time, other forms of command succeed : nega-
tive, that which results from not leaving any room for dis-
obedience, letting circumstances themselves impose the
order; silent, when the simple presence of the master,
near or distant, is sufficient to renew the vividness of past
orders ; imitative, when the preconcerted action of other
children carries with itself an implicit command to do the
same ; attractive, when showing the pleasant result of an

MORAL TREATMENT. 233

act, we make our child venture to do the same ; but at
this extreme limit of mitigation, command loses its name
with the remnant of its harsh features ; and authority is no
more than a watching kindness.

Command, of whatever character, is alleviated besides
by the variety of its modes of application. Where children
are submitted to protracted sittings under a single rule
and for a single object, command is depressing; but
when, as in our case, the rotatory system transfers inces-
santly the children from occupation to pleasure, lesson,
exercise, labor, excitement, etc., the forms of command
must vary to meet the feelings of indifference, pleasure,
antipathy, attraction, resistance successively provoked ;
and the result is not depression, bat elasticity favored by
the constant action of the masters on the children, and vice
versd.

Another mitigation of the harshness inherent to autho-
rity results from the different characters of those exercising
it. The child who breathes constantly under the sledge-
hammer of not unfrequent paternal rigor, presents a nar-
row chest ; the idiot commanded in the same way becomes
automatical, even in his intellectual acquisitions, nearly
as much so as he was in his primary isolation. Bat the
rotatory system of training idiots, and its consequence,
the natural division of the functions, accomplished in their
behalf by persons so different in their moral powers as
attendants, teachers, gymnasts, matrons, physicians, does
not permit authority to typify itself, even one hour at a
time, in one of those oppressive modes which leaves a

depressed imprint on a child. If the teacher has been

15

234 IDIOCY.

protracting his attention, the attendant soon invites him
to a pleasant song ; if series of numbers have been piled
up on the black-board, scores of harmonies from the piano
take their place ; if the gymnast has used a hand to red-
ness, the doctor pats it gently, at the same time that he
makes sure of the sanitary condition of the skin, look,
pulse, etc. This variety in the manner of handling idiots,
precludes monotony and aggravations. Ordered in so
many ways, the child passes from one commander to ano-
ther, without suspecting that he is passive. This supple
and mobile passivity itself becomes in a certain sense
active, and obedience becomes a voluntary action by the
simple effect of timely variety and gradual relaxation of
authority : the bird is free to soar in all healthy directions,
if he will.

Does this mean that our work is done ; that we are no
more wanted, nor our authority required ; that the moral
treatment has exhausted itself; and that the negative
will being broken, obedience secure, we must rest satisfied
in presence of our work, an unresisting, obedient child ?
No : evidently we have come to the bifurcation of the
road leading to passivity or to spontaneity, whence our
pupil may start for a reflex life, whose spring shall be in
others' hands, or for a self-regulating life, whose spring is
within his conscience. Whole nations and millions of
men are yet deprived of this consciousness of their station,
in ambient society by the total deprivation of moral
training. And yet, it would not be diflScult to point out
young men, former pupils of our institutions, generally
from among the most, distressing cases of superficial

MORAL TREATMENT. 235

idiocy, who certainly could not have been improved any-
where else ; and who, to-day, are far above the average
of men in regard to the regulation of their actions by
their own conscience of right and wrong. True, there are
not many such ; but the majority of the others, re-
maining backward owing to their yet feeble intellects,
can govern themselves under a slight and benevolent
supervision ; since idiots once trained do not require for
the maintenance of their social behavior anything equiva-
lent to policemen, gendarmes, etc., kindness, not force, is
their tutor, as it was their teacher.

We bring them to this point of moralization, generally
far superior to their intellectual standard, by extreme care
and affection, but easily enough ; because their infirmity,
in uncotnplicated states, affects the perceptive faculties,
even the spontaneity, but does not create any aberration
of the affective faculties, as does imbecility, or some spe-
cial forms of- insanity. Consequently, our success in this
matter, which is of the utmost importance, must be con-
sidered due as much to their good nature as to our own
exertions. Nevertheless, whatever could be their share
and ours in the result, to obtain it we cannot too soon
commingle the incitations to spontaneity with the most
passive or unwilled exercises of the training. Long be-
fore we have done away with commanding under all the
forms enarrated above, we must begin concurrently to
use the gentler forms of inducement, which conduct the
child insensibly from the diverse degrees of obedience to
earnest self-government. Those forms we call incitations
to spontaneity, unless we employ the words motor, mover,

236 IDIOCY.

or motive, whichever may best express our meaning, or
be understood. Henceforth, we do not command, we
incite ; we put the child in contact with motives, and he
moves ; we create for him, in the artificial atmosphere of
the institution, the same relations which impel men of the
world to action, and he acts ; we present to him attrac-
tions, and he is attracted in the measure of his attracta-
bility. Hence, he desires, tries, plans, succeeds, fails,
gets elated or discouraged, loves and feels of his own free
will, as he would under the incitations, apparently acci-
dental, of social life ; the only difference being, that we
have prepared and graduated to his proportions the con-
tacts to be encountered, or the obstacles to be overcome,
whilst, in ordinary social life, such earthly providence is
not to be expected. This begins at the lowest point of
animal life, but we shall not choose our illustrations lower
than the act of feeding.

When an idiot commences, not to receive, but to take
his food, we overlook, for our present object, the coarse
tearing of the meat, the. hasty swallowing without masti-
cation, and other depravities equally repugnant and un-
healthy, to consider only how intensely animal and selfish
he is in his action ; how much more he needs the spiritual
than the material nutriment of bread ; and our duty
becomes manifest to make him understand the book of
wisdom contained in a mouthful. As he was himself fed
by others' hands, as soon as he can carry a morsel to his
own mouth, he must be made to present the same to some
children incapable, in different ways, of feeding them-
selves. He must be made, besides, to feed animals chosen

MORAL TREATMENT. 237

for the lessons he may get from their perspicuity of sense,
vivacity of movement, and neatness in eating. But these
incitations by the example of animals must be carefully
selected, otherwise from some of them he might learn
vicious modes of mastication, or excessive appetite for
flesh, or even confirm himself in his greediness. Then he
must be placed at table next persons who give constant
good examples, who timely correct his bad habits, and
admonish him orally with great discretion, for appetite is
deaf.

Appetite naturally speaking louder than morality, the
voice of the first must be lowered, that of the sec-
ond heightened. For this reason, we should not make
them eat in large groups, within sight of huge dishes ;
but they should be served in small rooms. Being few at
a family-like table, they have to wait long enough to
give each one the chance of controlling the beast which
is inside his stomach ; not so long as to let it loose in dis-
graceful manifestations. The same scrupulous care will
direct the apportioning of the children's food. l!Tot only
the cut or measure requires an ever-changing discretion
to meet the requirements of changing appetites and cli-
materic circumstances ; but the hand responsible for this
duty must never appear tired or careless ; for often the
child despises his food, or eats it grossly, because it was
carelessly served or handed to him. In the same train
of care and delicacy, as soon as convenient, the children
should be made to wait upon each other, with order and
decorum. How can we make them do it ? Not by tell-
ing, arguing, threatening ; for we repeat it, hunger is

238 iDiocT.

deaf; but by the incitations of example from birds,
animals, other children, and mostly from ourselves ; the
best example is our own. We must be their teachers in
this, by being their servants ; our serving, teaching them
to serve others by imitation, emulation, ambition even ;
do they not want to do as the teacher does ? "When this
ambition begins to produce its normal effect, we open a
new issue to their mind through their food, by asking if
they have produced or helped to prepare it ; what part
they had in this, what part others, etc. Then we must
make thein realize, in a tangible manner, that the food
they will take, and which shall sustain their vitality, is
the result of the concourse and combined efforts of hun-
dreds of their fellow-men, who have contributed it for
their comfort. We must make them aware of their rela-
tions to those who have worked and suffered as farmers,
gardeners, bakers, to produce this food, and to those who,
less fortunate, hunger and have nothing to eat. In this
spirit, the idiots of Bic^tre repeated before, meals the fol-
lowing blessing : " Our Father, bless tlie food we have
before us, and so let it be that the poorest have the same.
Amen." Another equivalent, after meals, and others
adapted to their studies, work, etc. By no means would
we have it surmised that we were participant in any
mummery ; but we tried in simple words to convey to
simple children the simplest ideas of equity and recipro-
city between men under the Supreme Justice, and we
think our efforts were partially successful.

Another prominent occasion for the application of the
moral treatment is the work. But here the subject is so

MOKAL TREATMENT. 239

vast that we caunot even pretend to mention all its im-
portant points. Idiots miist be made to work for a result.
That result, or product, must be sensible and comprehen-
sible in proportion to their perception and intellect ;
must, be, at first, of personal and immediate use, such as
to draw water to quench actual thirst, or pull, up from the
garden vegetables to eat presently, etc. The next and
complementary step leads them to do the same, or simi-
lar work, for' the satisfaction of others. Soon, again,
they must be made to work in cooperation ; several to
help one, one to help several, one helped for his own
good, or helping for the advantage of others ; all manner
of solidarity, either in the work, or in its result ; working
as a social element, as a moral status.

But here we speak of enforcing the moral and social
duty of working, upon unfortunate children scarcely re-
claimed from their nothingness, before inquiring if they
are in a condition to support, like all of us, the tedious
and exhausting burden of labor. Men must work because
working is the only way of producing ; and produce we
must, since we consume. Idiots escape that law as long
as their infirmity incapacitates them ; otherwise they too
must work in the proportion of their strength and capa-
city. But all that could be expected of the most success-
fully strengthened and educated among them, is from four
to five Iiours' labor a day ; just the share of each one of
us if all were working.

But can the idiot be made to work in competitive in-
dustry, where steam and machinery force production
every day to an extent unknown the day before, and re-

240 IDIOCY.

duce proud mankind to the shape and degradation of the
stunted, sallow, and sullen workmen of Lyons, Lille, Man-
chester, Birmingham, etc. If idiots are to be so employed,
it were bettor to leave them in their primary condition.
Nevertheless, we do not ignore that some idiots manifest
peculiar tendencies which can be utilized in one mechani-
cal ti'ade or another. Where such strong natural ability
exists, let it be followed up, if the child himself can
derive projfit and mental happiness from its prosecution.
But this peculiarity does not belong to a class ; being
only the strange gift of one in many, it cannot justify
their miscellaneous packing in shops. The very few
in-door labors they can be put to, are more or less con-
nected with the various departments of housekeeping.
In this line, children feel the solidarity of the principle,
understanding easily that they work for themselves and
friends; if they do not make money by it, they gather a
harvest of sense, of order and mutual dependence, with
appropriate feelings and ideas related to their position
and social standing. Otherwise, and under any other
circumstances, they must work as much as possible with
the concourse of nature, and with the genial cooperation
of the sun. By all means we must let this be their life in
the institution.

The relations of money to food and to labor are to be
presented to such of the children as can understand them,
in the most practical form ; their own books establishing
the balance of their accounts with the institution ; each
child credited with the value of his work, and debited
with his expenses. "When they have followed a class of

MOEAL TREATMENT. 241

pricing (as we understaod there is one in the Earlswood
Institution, England), for usual objects, with critical obser-
vations on the qualities requisite in each, such as shoes,
books, gloves, needles, etc., we send them to make ex-
perimental purchases with their own earned money, and
let them and the other children debate together the result
of these foreign operations.

As a set-off and compensation for so much care heaped
on frail beings, we devote as much time as we can to the
most sensible of our duties, to make them merry and gay
in innocent relaxation. Those who have seen idiots, at
the second stage of their education, so shy under a strict
rule, so daring in the play-room, will readily understand
our meaning. But it takes a long intimacy with the
sterner forms of the infirmity to get at the mystery of
the silent progress accomplished by the lowest idiots,
during the first and nearly despairing period of their
training, when admitted to witness the liveliness of the
play-room. There, the pleasures enjoyed by the more
forward pupils have a reflex influence of a curious cha-
racter upon the worst cases ; the immovable feel reflec-
tively the exaltation of the impressible ; they enjoy
through the joy of others, and seem to prepare them-
selves for future like enjoyment, by occasional twitchings
of some muscles, more abundant dribbling of saliva, or an
erratic smile ; as we see the chrysalis moving its future
wings under the bearings of its dirty gray cocoon.

But the feelings of idiots are not all of an indescribable
nature ; on the contrary, what the majority of them feel,
whether joy or sorrow, they express openly and accu-

242 IDIOCY.

rately. If any person coming among them be indifPerent
or attractive, we see it reflected on their face ; if the
entertainment prepared for them be pleasant or not, we
read it in their countenance ; and it requires a pretty
good insight into their character to hit the mark. There-
fore the actings performed to please them, with the con-
course of some of their number, as in Syracuse, Media,
Barre, and Earlswood, are to be planned by their best
friends and teachers, who become for the occasion impres-
sarios, managers, and costumers. It is astonishing to see
how real idiots enjoy these representations; and it is
touching to see them trying to bring the acting to the
understanding of their lowest fellows. Next to these
stately representations, and several times a week, comes
dancing, and many times a day comes music.

Promenades for a short distance, excursions farther,
must be of frequent occurrence. Not that we advise them
for the mere object of aiding the children, or of improv-
ing their physical health, but to prepare a special end to
them each time ; and although that end will not always
directly have a moral object, yet the children will con-
tract by it the moral habit of giving an object to each of
their actions, and of planning and expecting a return from
each of their undertakings : conclusions highly moraliz-
ing of themselves. Therefore, if we often send some
children to carry objects of comfort to a destitute family
in the neighborhood, we send them too on the beach to
collect shells, or in the meadow for violets ; the woods
will furnish them one day with green leaves, another with
russet or red ones ; at one time, at our suggestion, they

MORAL TEEATMENT. 243

hunt for the smallest, at another for the largest leaves ;
again, for blue or red berries, or for nuts, acorns, etc.
The very stones may be collected on the way, according
to color, form, or size; we must never let our pupils
return empty-handed.

The institution is never so far from a city that its in-
mates cannot be admitted to the sights of civilization and
wonder. We must beware of too much isolating the
naturally isolated idiot. By sending him, as soon as he
behaves, to church, to the museum, meetings, shows, and
even theatres, we do not so much create in him a taste
for those things, as a desire of mingling with yonder
world ; pregnant curiosity, which is of itself one of the
mainsprings of life. Besides these amusements, Christ-
mas, New Year's day, and other holidays should be duly
observed.

The children must have stores of playthings easily de-
stroyed and renewed. Before leaving these in their
hands, we cannot avoid remarking that there are none of
them which have not certain qualities and effects, in rela-
tion to our children, worth studying. Some of them are to
be enjoyed alone, some in common ; great distinction which
must, above all, govern their distribution. Then come
the particular characters of each; we would not have
Punchinello make his automatic gestures before a child
whom we want to cure of the same ; nor would we like
to hear the barking of a papier-mache dog near a child
whose voice is not yet settled in the human notes ; we
would avoid, as much as possible, toys used individually
for children addicted to loneliness, and try to give a social

244 IDIOCY.

character to those which are generally made to amuse a
single child : the more numerous the players, the more
lively and social is the game ; we can never teach too
many children, nor too often, with toys. They may be
taught in school many things utterly useless for their im-
provement ; but they cannot be made to play together,
with or without toys, without learning and increasing
their moral qualities : playing is a moral power, amusing
the lowest idiot is another ; our children must enjoy both.
In the school, at meals, in the fields, on the play-ground,
all points of contact for these secluded children, how
many chances has the teacher to appose them in relations
which shall create their sense of moral association, their
sociability, and their family-like affinities. But it is
easier to let grow, out of unprepared contacts, rivalry,
quarrelling, and disaffection, than to thoughtfully prepare
the associations of our charge for the production of con-
cert, harmony, and affection. However, circumstances
may occur in which the best prearranged contacts be-
come painful to some ; those who cannot be saved these
asperities, must have their sore feelings soothed ; and all
of them may be taught to love by being loved. Who
could do it better than those who have devoted them-
selves to their improvement ? To develop their sense
of affection, as were developed their senses of sight,
of hearing, and others, does not demand new instru-
ments or new teachers, but the extension of the same
action upon their feelings. To make the child feel that
he is loved, and to make him eager to love in his turn, is
the end of our teaching as it has been its beginning. If we

MORAL TREATMENT. 245

have loved our pupils, they felt it and communicated the
same feeling to each other ; if they have heen loved, they
are loving in all the degrees of human power conformable
with their limited synergy.

We should like to say how this is to be accomplished ;
but who can tell ? Leuret, being asked about that moral
influence, said that he could not tell ; all depended on in-
spiration and circumstances ; all unforeseen and impos-
sible to foretell. We characterized it as an action of the
stronger on the weaker will for its improvement ; but it
is an action incessantly varying, upon terms constantly
modified ; phenomena evading analysis, serial evolutions
escaping graphic drawing. In its march it begins with
the most profound feelings of pity and charity for the
unfortunate; it continues through compulsory, impulsing,
or inciting commands ; a work ever changing in form,
never changing in object; unremittingly coaxing the
isolated child into society ; it is throughout a work of
devotion. In this work the teacher, the nurse, the phy-
sician, the philosopher, the physiologist, the psychologist,
and the moralist have something to do. But their doings
are all subordinate to those of the most profound affec-
tion. For our pupils science, literature, art, education,
medicine, philosophy, each may do something ; but love
alone can truly socialize them ; those alone who love
them are their true rescuers. The men who pretend to
treat idiocy with talent, erudition, even genius, may find
the appreciation of their Ctopianism in these words of
Paul : " Though I speak with the tongue of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding

246 IDIOCY.

brass, or a tinkling cymbal ; and though I have the gift
of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all know-
ledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could re-
move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Evidently the apostle knew more than we about moral
treatment ; and we close our feeble remarks by meditat-
ing upon this forcible text on the subject.

PART ly.-mSTITUTIOK

Fart IV.

mSTITTJTION.

The establishments founded for idiots have been called by
various names — ^Schools, Institutions, Asylums, etc. The
term school expresses well the place in which these chil-
dren are educated, and that of institution leaves more
room for the understanding that therein they are boarded,
nursed, and especially treated also. Ifevertheless, it dpes
. not seem proper to employ one of these two terms to the
exclusion of the other without having taken the advice,,
duly debated and matured, of the persons most engaged
in the work. This seems one of the questions relating t&
the subject which requires the earliest solution.

We are aware that the appellation of asylum has been
attached to several of the most important schools. But
this term conveys exclusively the idea of a custodian ,.
■ life-long place of retreat, whereas the institution or school
is only temporai'ily open for educational and physiologi-
cal treatment. In it idiots and their congeners are ex-
pected to remain during the period assigned by nature-
for progress in young persons, unless it sooner becomes
manifest that they cannot be improved at all or any
more, in which case their parents should take them out
to make room for new pupils. In all respects this is an

institution similar to those for the deaf mute and the

. 16

250 IDIOCY.

Wind. Besides, the term asylum is wanted for a neces-
sary appendix to the school, in which idiots and other
victims of incurable affections of the nervous system shall
be received for their lifetime, when, after having fol-
lowed, with only a partial success, the ciirriculum of the
school, they are found destitute of means or of kind
parents. The asylum would be the place where they
would be cared and provided for, in the same spirit of
charity in which they were taiight, if it be connected
with the institution, organized like a farming family,
and managed by retired teachers and attendants, under-
standing the peculiarities of idiots and accustomed to
treat them like their own children.

The report of Orfila to the Administration of the hos-
pitals • of Paris (October 12, 184:2), and that of Serres,
Flourens, and Pariset, to the French Institute (December
11, 1843), are the twin corner-stones of all the institu-
tions since founded for the education of idiots.

In Switzerland, Guggenblihl, and in Prussia, Saegert,
soon worked on the data furnished by our nnmerous
pamphlets, issued from 1838. On this side of the Atlan-
tic, Dr. Pi-ederick Backus, of Rochester, worded a report
to the Senate of the State of New York, for the founda-
tion of the first State Institution for idiots. It was voted
by that body in the winter of 1845-6, but subsequently
defeated by the Assembly. Our first private school was
opened by Dr. H. B. Wilbnr, at Barre, Mass., in July,
1848 ; and in October of the same year. Dr. Samuel G.
Howe opened in South Boston the first State Institution,
due to his persevering action on the Legislature of Mas-

INSTITUTION. 251

sachiisetts. The State of New York had the plans of Dr.
Backus realized in 1851. Pennsylvania owes to Mr. J.
B. Richards the beginning of her State School in 1852 ;
Ohio, Kentucky, Connecticut, Illinois, following. England
founded the institution of Highgate in 1847, and that of
Earlswood in 1853 ; Scotland had hers later ; all civilized
countries have now one at least ; but none has so many
in' fact, and in proportion to its population, as the United
States.

It took ten years to found the method of training idiots,
and it required fifteen more to found the institutions on
the most solid basis of the budget of nations. After hav-
ing exposed the method, it would be a great pleasure to
describe and compare the various institutions, but the
means of doing it are not within our reach; and after
reflection, we are now inclined to think that this depriva-
tion may be turned to good account, by permitting us to
say with more independence what the typical institution
must be, rather than what each of the existing ones is.

Supposing the seat of the establishment selected accord-
ing to the Hippocratic rules in respect to air,, water,
elevation, and genial exposure, we advise only to locate
it in the mean and most equable temperature of the geo-
graphical circumscription in which its future inmates
have been born and raised. Any great .change in this
respect would be followed by unpleasant consequences ;
though we are inclined to think that in extreme latitudes
a slight deviation from this rule would be rather favor-
able, if it carried the institutions of the North a little to
the South, and those of the South a little to the North,

252 IDIOCY.

Ey this artifice, the climate of the former shall not be
more intensely, but longer warm ; whilst the climate of
the latter shall be favorable to labor and exercise for
several weeks.

The buildings of the institution must have a special
character, unlike those of any other educational establish-
ment, to correspond with certain idiosynocrasies of the
children and with numerous exigencies of their treatment.
Idiots vitiate the air very rapidly ; hence the necessity of
supplying them with morje than an ordinary share of it,
by making their rooms very high and large, very airy
and easily ventilated, accessible equally to natural and
artificial heat. Their training, unlike that of ordinary
children, requiring movement, noise, and show, demands
a special distribution of the building, which, in this wise,
becomes one of the most effective means of physio-
logical education : upon this we must dwell at some
length.

Part of the Casement, founded on high ground and well
drained, may be used for bathing, and for taking the
meals if the windows be situated so that the children can,
from the tables, enjoy the view of the gardens, purposely
ornamented. The dining-rooms must be numerous, small
and neat ; so that the children may be grouped in each as
at a family table. The upper stories are devoted to
sleeping apartments, infirmary, and the like. The dor-
mitories are large, but in no instance should contain more
than four to ten children with one attendant. These
rooms are kept tastefully in order by the same attendant,
assisted by her children. There are no means of com-

INSTITUTION. 253

munication from the side, story, or building occupied by
the girls, to that of the boys.

The ground floor is the institution par excellence, the
learning, moving, acting of the children, taking place on
this floor, whose distribution must be entirely subordinate
to the necessities of the treatment. When these shall be
better understood, the reception-rooms and other acces-
sories will be removed from this floor to give free scope
to the general training. The partitioning of this floor
must be so contrived that each room may be closed by
itself, or all of them wide open, connecting as a single
circular hall. This, as a whole, serves the various pur-
poses of the general training. It may be seen at a glance
that to be made serviceable in this wise, the space occu-
pied by the school apparatus must be insignificant, com-
pared to that left for the movements ; otherwise, each
room having its decorations, instruments, and character
perfectly determined, accoi'ding to its destination ; and,
as these apartments substantiate the special training, at
least the greater part of it, we must describe the most
important of them.

For these special purposes, the rooms must communi-
cate freely, be closed easily, intercept the noises from one
part to another, present large wall surfaces opposite to
large surfaces of light ; the ceilings must be lofty but
even, without any relief or colors unduly attracting the
attention. The floors must all be on the same level, for
carriages to transport the most immovable pupils, and
things generally ; otherwise the floor of nearly each room

254 IDIOCT.-

must be marked in a certain manner, for llie different
exercises to be followed in them, as we shall see.

Though it matters little which part of the institution
' we describe first, we may as well begin with the delinea-
tion of one of the numerous recesses where an inattentive
and ungovernable child is taken apart, now and then, to
fix his attention and reduce his disordered movements to
firm immobility. This is a mere nook, uniformly colored
like a studio ; lighted by a single window with no land-
scape, no accessory ornament, no furniture save two firm
blocks, shaped like the sole of the feet, and destined to sup-
port, like pedestals, the child at a height from which he can-
not escape, and whence he can, must, and finally will take
notice of the presence of his teacher, or of a tiling offered to
his sight, in the absence of anything else to be seen.

Near at hand must be the large-sized room, in which
involuntary exercises of the feet are taught ; the self-
acting swing, opposed to a spring-board, from which the
feet borrow strength and elasticity ; the ladder lying on
the floor forcing the child, who must walk between its
rounds, to raise his feet ; the treadmill whose floor moves,
and makes the child walk in situ ; the blocks rising from
the floor at regular walking distances ; and parallel to
them, the painted footprints on the floor ; the former to
make the regular walk compulsive, the latter to make it
obligatory. Here, dumb-bells are only used as means of
equilibrium, to give regularity and firmness to tlie walk.
That room has an issue upon stairs, expressly built with
series of variously sized steps, to teach the going up and
down : dumb-bells are cirried there too.

INSTITUTION. 255

The room in which are perfoi'med the exercises of per-
sonal imitation, must be exempt from noise, ornament, or
attraction of any sort. Its floor must he marked here and
there with straight and curved lines, and with series of
footprints upon which each child is expected to stand, or
fall back to in due time ; these footprints afl'ecting a
straight or slightly concave line, or several such, accord-
ing to the wants of the teaching ; for, to imitate well, all
the children must see equally the motions of the teaclier.
In some places are holes in the floor, used to secure blocks
upon which unsteady children are forced into steadiness
during the exercise, being unwilling io fall.

The development of the human voice being favored by
the voice of instruments, there is a piano in the room
devoted to purely vocal exercises. There, one child at ,a
time, or many together, are trained to emit tones, short or
long, high or low, single or by pairs, or in series. If this
room be ornamented, its pictures must represent musical
instruments, iond fide singers and even comical concerts.
The articulation-room is more secluded, ofi^e'ring no dis-
traction, not even through the unique window, which is-
' rather high, and throws its bright light, not liorizontally,
but from above downwards, in order well to show the
articulating movements.

Imitation relating to objects, or impersonal, requires a
vast room. Closets alternating with architectural engrav-
ings and images of things to be imitated ; very few seats,
large tables, the middle of the room remaining unencum-
bered. In the closets are the pieces, carefully assorted,
necessary for the representation of certain patterns. hang-

256 IDIOCY.

ing on the walls, or near at hand. On some tables are
geometrical blocks, whose forms stand next for comparison
and adaptation. Other blocks of various sizes, most of
them shaped like bricks, are piled up in out-of-the-way
places, ready to enter into whatever combinations, whe-
ther of a few geometrically assembled on a table, or of a
great many rising from the floor in towers, or extending
in walls, houses, and circumvallations.

The education of the touch demands separate accom-
modations. The room in which it is done must be easily
deprived of light, well supplied with closets containing a
selection of substances, productions of art or of nature,
whose characteristic properties fall under the control of
the tact. When there is a want of room, the exercises of
the taste and smell may be practised in the same place,
though they do not exact so much attention as those of
the touch, and may be favored by the sight of the pic-
tures representing repasts, feasts, convivialities, fruits,
flowers, and such-like ; external elements of incitation of
taste and smell, at best superfluous in tactile gymnastics.

Though auditory exercises are not all confined to a
single room, we may describe only the principal one
devoted to it. In it the child is spoken to, close by, and
at various distances ; directly from mouth to ear, or
through the medium of hollow tubes, speaking-trumpets,
etc. ; or he is submitted to the direct agency of watches,
bells, pianos : that room must be supplied for such emer-
gencies. But it would be a poor teaching of audition to
limit the sounds to one room ; those first heard, because
they are actually produced near the organ, must soon be

INSTITUTION. ' 257

reproduced farther and farther from it, till instead of
^ directly impinging upon the organ, they are to be gathered
in the concha by an effort of the child's will. Therefore
the pianos, violins, etc., playing in this room must, for
some special teachings, have their tones continued by
some similar instruments placed in the building, at gradu-
ated distances. Besides, the audition-room is the place
for. the ordinary training of that sense, by making the
children appreciate, as in sports, the noises produced by
the fall or the contact of various bodies, their own voices
reciprocally, etc., without the assistance of other senses.

The gymnastics of the sight require more space, and
cannot even very well be confined to rooms ; but part of
them demand the following accommodations. A place
easily rendered dark and easily lighted by the removal of
one or several blinds, whose displacement at once gives
entrance to a large amount of light. To these windows
may be adapted kaleidoscopic combinations, stereoscopic
views, simple colors, forms, or letters, or striking images
to be shown or concealed in a moment ; the same room,
lighted at will from above, to exhibit objects through
long tubes and appliances, such as opera-glasses, micro-
scopes, etc. And a gallery is to be fitted up near by, in
which the bow and air-gun may be used, or which may
serve as a, croquet-ground or a bowling-alley. Once the
look secured, the child is transferred to the room in which
he shall systematically learn colors, forms, dimensions,
and the combination of parts to form a whole. Here
ornaments and decorations are not amiss ; the walls are
covered with rich pictures, to which reference may be had

258 IDIOCY.

when studying colors on cards, or with samples of cotton,
woollen, or silken fabrics. Here too we see for the first,^
and not the last lime, the narrow semicircular table, inside
of which the teacher stands, while around it are the
children. Therfe are few chairs, and fewer unobstructive
closets, running low along the walls, to keep the objects
necessary for the aforesaid teaching, leaving plenty of
room in the centre for moving and comparing objects.

Drawing, writing, reading, are taught in one room.
Opposite the windows, the wall is entirely covered, at a
proper height, with slate or composition answering the
same purpose. On the sides are cards representing let-
ters and words ; the simple representations of the familiar
objects named on the cards, and forming, with the words
written on the black-board, the staple reading matter of
beginners. In well-lighed embrasures stand also some of
the ingenious machines for composing words. There are
no more seats and tables than absolutely necessary for a
tempory rest of part of the class. But in front of the
black-board, there are on- the floor painted foot-marks to
keep the children at a proper distance from the object of
Instruction; and when these marks are not stringent
enough, isolating blocks are put up, and the delinquent
is expected to behave from the top of them. But immo-
bility and attention are generally secure with less appa-
ratus ; as when children have their names conspicuously
written on the board, or other conventional punishment
felt more keenly than strangers might suppose.

A room, very similar to this, is destined for calculation.
Besides the slates and series of balls of various colors set

INSTITUTION. 259

on wire, there are collections of objects by numbers of
the same kind, easy to aggregate or separate in groups at
a bidding. To that effect more tables are provided here
than anywhere else ; all horizontal and circumscribed by a
slightly salient edge, so that no object could fall. On
these tables the four rules and fractions are taught with
grapes, pears, marbles, nuts, etc., as thoroughly as by the
most disheartening abstraction ; they are transferred to
the slate only when well understood. Here, at other
•times, assembling objects by pairs, series, similarity, or
contrast, is rendered easy by the presence of numerous
collections. Exercises of nomination take place also, in
which the sight of objects provokes to language, and lan-
guage in its turn spurs the lazy sight to recognition of
objects : tedious exercise when it begins slowly, highly
interesting when prosecuted with fire by a smart teacher
followed by six or ten animated pupils.

The number of apartments occupied by the preceding
and following trainings shall depend upon the size of the
building. Collections made by the children themselves,
and those of minerals and animals, or others that accrue
naturally to an institution of this class, are expected to
occupy large places ; so that references and illustrations
from them may be constantly at hand. The necessary
distance of the institution from cities, whose streets and
shows exhibit at all hours the true magazine of learning for
the masses of the people, and the difficulty of sending idiots
about to pick up by sight that which no book nor teacher
can convey to their mind, renders more imperious the
duty of making these collections as numerous as possible.

260 IDIOCY.

The objects gathered with the express view of giving
object-lessons, do not need to be always in sight ; but
need careful arrangement and storage ; where they may
be found, and in such order that the qualities by which
they resemble one another, or differ, be apposed in their
resting-places ; so that it may suffice to present them as
they stand there, to exhibit to the children the vividness
of their properties. The things collected to teach pricing
are quite different. At first they are very few, and of the
kind that the child cannot afford to live without. The
appreciation of their value carries with it the use of num-
bers, scales, yards, money, and other elements of valua-
tion : a knowledge of intrinsic value requires the gather-
ing of more objects, a better study of their properties,
and more sensorial discrimination. The collections made
for that study must resemble in their arrangement, more
than any other, the shelves of a store filled with samples
of several qualities of everything that the child may be
expected to need himself, and likely to call for afterwards.
This room naturally becomes the place where qualifica-
tion exercises may be carried to the utmost limit.

"When room is scarce, we may put together, but never
confusedly : 1st. On the higher shelves, the patterns of
simple things that the children may occasionally have to
execute in wax, clay, wood, etc. 2d. Somewhat lower,
and easily seen but not touched, the standard toys, ex-
pansive, delicate, conveying more ideas by the sight than
they would pleasure by handling. 3d. Still lower, within
reach of prehension, the playthings proper, bright, cheap,
and easily broken contrivances, which are so necessary to

INSTITUTIOK. 261

the happiness of children, and from which they learn so
much, even when destroying them.

A room sufficiently large to contain all the children and
visitors, is used daily for the common singing, and occa-
sionally for musical and other festivities. The care of
ornamenting that room with fresh wreaths and new pat-
terns of decoration falls to the more intelligent children
of both sexes, under the guidance of a person designated
for that duty by refined tastes and habits. This music or
meeting-hall is the one in which the children dance or
play together till the sleeping hour comes sooner or later,
according to age and grade of intelligence ; otherwise
the girls and boys enjoy themselves in separate chambers
and playgrounds.

The rooms in which dumb-bells, balancing-poles, In-
dian clubs, and the like are used, have their floors divided
in one direction by straight lines, in another by rows of
footprints, to mark the distances at which the children
must stand not to hurt each other, and to help their
classification. This room also serves for various imitation
exercises, and opens, for more than one' convenience, into
the gymnasium.

This last contains the gymnastic apparatus proper;
those essential to restore the muscular function, not to
exaggerate it. It is, besides, the hall in which take place
all the exercises and sports when the weather forbids
their being carried on in the open air. For this vicarious
purpose, the gymnasium must contain the various play-
things in the same order as in an armory the arms are set
up in racks ; not for an idle display, but as standing pro-

262 IDIOCY.

Tocations to desire and use them. Thus, with taste and
show, are exhibited hoops, skates, sleds, balloons, ten-pins,
kites, wooden and other balls, all arranged against the
walls in attractive symmetry. Bows and arrows, wooden
swords and guns, occupy in rows accessible positions,
ready to be seized by the children, who need to learn the
use of war implements; the determined attitude, the
quick step, the firm grasp, the sure aim, etc. Even the
fighting value of this military training in so feeble hands
can be no longer despised, since two of the pupils of the
New York State Institution went into the army of the
Union, understanding very well what they fought for ;
one died of the fatigues of the campaigns; the other,
wounded in two battles under Sheridan, died at Winches-
ter. These things give to the gymnasium a character
unlike to that of any other part of the building. Another
peculiarity of its disposition is the gathering in it, and in
the smallest compass, of all the difficulties which a child
may accidentally find in his way, by establishing along
its walls a system of up and down declivities and stairs,
of artificial ditches, and of abrupt ascending and descend-
ing planes, over all of which the children, excited by
music, by the voice and the animation of all the force of
teachers and attendants, are unavoidably carried into a
vortex of movement against the sluggishness of their own
nature. When the weather is dull, chilly, thawing, the
doors closed, the habitable world of the family limited by
the gray windows, we mobilize them by a quick tap on
the drum, a friendly one on the shoulder, a hand to sup-
port the trembling, a word to encourage the timid ; on

INSTITITTIOIT. 263

they go, each one and all pushed, pushing, falling, raised
up, laughing, crying, animated in their features and
moyements, as if they had never been idiots ; till masters
and pupils, eager for rest, are stopped, after ten or fifteen
minutes of this wild chase, by the dinner-bell.

But happy the time when the gymnasium and most of
the rooms can be vacated, and training and teaching may
be transferred to the open air. There another and more
natural school is prepared for them, and by their own
efforts. Between some lofty trees, they have built and
dug up with spades and wheelbarrows, walls, ditches, and
race-courses strewn with obstructions, over which they
are made to run, and from which they must extricate
themselves. They have also raised stone or turf banks to
sit upon under the shade in warm weather, and listen to
the wonderful stories flowing from their teacher's lips.
Thence they are sent in quest of specified natural objects,
such as leaves, insects, flowers, etc., and they return, each
one with his booty, a more intelligent countenance, and a
happy face.

But all is not enjoyment in their lives. Next to the
pleasant shades, the gardens and fields are open for more
sober sports, which may be rendered as interesting as their
destination is useful. The very youngest of the children
are sent in squads to dig little holes a few inches apart ; to
deposit a precise number of seeds in each hole, without
missing any ; to cover the seeds with light dirt, etc.
Later, being made familiar with the shape of a few leaves,
they are sent in crowds to weed out from a large patch
every green thing showing itself under a form different

264 IDIOCY.

from the one expected to grow on the spot. The hunting
for insects destructive of vegetation, is another occupation
rendered attractive by making the children conscious of
the good they do, and by creating a gentle emulation
among them for the number, the size, the strange appear-
ance of their captures, etc. Soon these children become
able to pave the garden walks with pebbles, or make gut-
ters at their sides ; they learn in short sessions the use of
the spade, hoe, rake, watering-pot and others, according to
their strength. Their implements should be light and effi-
cient ; this is capital ; how many beginners have con-
ceived for their work the abhorrence justly deserved by
their clumsy tools. We will not follow our children,
grown stronger, in the farm to see them helped by ani-
mals which they treat kindly, and above all, aided by na-
ture. This is essentially the work for them. There, idiots
are not exposed to crushing competition, but receive the
concourse of the great Helper. Once, at the entrance of a
poor man's field, was written, "The sun shines for all
men." "We read it many a time in our tender years with-
out understanding it ; but even on another continent, the
sentence followed us, with its sun daubed in the middle,
and we think that we understand it now ; since we wish,
we pray, that idiots, may be kept working only where the
sun can mature what they prepare : the sun of God shining
for all.

Now that we have described the most imj)ortant parts
of the material institution, as the locality, or frame with
many compartments in which the various acts of treating
idiots take place ; each room, nook, corner, hall and

INSTITUTION, 265

ground having been shown with its object, it is easy to
perceive the unity of the intellectual institution, hot-bed
of physiological education for infirm children.

The intellectual institution is the living counterpart of
the method. We discover in it the same flexibility of
adaptation to all the physiological deficiencies, to bodily
and mental weakness. In it the rotatory system is substan-
tiated ; we see the child moving from one mode of training
to another, as in the method we could realize, his feeble
mind led from one perception to another, and elevated,
not by direct ascension, but by side-liftings and propaga-
tion of forces, as levers act on apparently immovable
masses. The counter-drawing of the method is perso-
nated : firstly, by the children ; secondly, by agents
whose action upon them is as systematic as the method
itself, though tendered fluent and easy by the train of
afiiectionate impulse.

We shall first consider the children. Those forming
the body of an institution must be idiots, of course ; but
among them are others rendered incapable of attending
ordinary schools by various infirmities, and for whom no.
educational provision has yet been made. It would he-
useless to rehearse here the conditions of fitness of idiots-
and their congeners to the institution ; we suppose that
most of the applicants, may be benefited in it, but!- we ar&
obliged to acknowledge that their indiscriminate admis-
sion would impair the efficacy of the establishment, and
we remark at once, that this woiild occur in two ways :.
one by the preponderance of certain sorts of infirmities

among the admitted children, the other by their intrinsic

17

266 iMocT.

number without reference to classification. In regard to
variety in the infirmities of those received, the pupils
may be selected so that the institution has life in it, or
falls upon itself like a dead weight. Therefore, in their
admission, great discretion is to be exercised as to^ the
number and the gravity of each kind of cases. If the
bulk of them were affected with automatic movements,
or incapable of auditing, or of comprehending orders,
or affected with impeded locomotion, or prehension,
etc., the predominance of one of these infirmities would
act very depressingly, not only upon the individual treat-
ment, but fatally on the onward and even movement of
the general training of the mass of the pupils.

To constitute the broad and lower stratum of a normal
institution for idiots, they and their -congeners must
accordingly be chosen in view of forming what we may
be permitted to call an efficient body of incapacities. In
this body the life, though defective, circulates and may
improve, because the children have been apposed with
regard to the representation in the school of the many
infirmities characteristic of typical idiocy. In this wise
the establishment is made to represent in the concrete,
abstract idiocy, with its normal amount of incapacities
and of quasi-aptitudes equipoised, so that it may be com-
pared t6 a merchantman whose cargo is distributed for
swift sailing. In general terms, if we want the institu-
tion to progress, the inmates miist be chosen so that no
special condition in them predominates over the others ;
but we must particularly warn any new establishment
against three of them. Ist. Epilepsy, which too often

INSTITUTION. 267-

aggravates idiocy, ranks foremost. It is nearly impossi-
ble to forward tke general treatment with the impediment
offered by the sight and care of convulsions, impressing
badly the other children, and consuming' the available
force of the personnel. 2d. Extensive paralysis and
contractures, when largely represented, raise the same ob-
jection, 3d. The admission of many very young children
acts in the same manner by the incessant care they claim,
part of which hinders the movement of a public institution.
The nursing required by so young pupils is not only the
caring and watching day and night, so necessary to weak
children, but it is the ceaseless fondling against a warm
breast, from which the child seems to derive part of his
vitality ; and as idiots are^ besides their infirmity, gene-
rally by several years behind other children^ they need
several years more of tender nursing and motherly care.
It is better, therefore, as we said, to teach their mothers
how to apply at home the physiological process of deve-
lopment, sooner than to admit them to pine away in the
midst of apparently favorable circumstances.

In private and select practice, provisions may be
made to avoid these inconveniences ; but in public insti-
tutions, the general end to be attained must not be lost
sight of for the sake of improving more especially a class
of patients, nor even a set of functions in all of them. The
school is to be filled by a choice of pupils whose collec-
tion shall form a unit easy to move, easy to command,
easy to progress with the expense of a given force of in-
telligent persons. And by such judicious choice of pupils
on the one hand, and of assistants on the other, the moral

268 IDIOCY.

being called institution for idiots is expected' to be able to
train her children up to the highest point of their possible
attainment, instead of being herself dragged, by their
dead weight, to their level.

Besides, to form a school, the children must be numer-
ous enough to be worked successively into the various
modes of general, group, and individual trainings. This
minimum number must be attained to form anything
like a school — even a private one. We would not say
that, to succeed, there must be at least so many pupils in
training at once ; for it would be like mistrusting the
miracles of individual ingenuity, or denying the power of
devotion, money, scientific investigation, etc. ; it would
be like producing false evidence against ourselves, since
we treated idiots by ones, by tens, be:*^ore we gathered
them for the first time by the hundred in Bic6tre. But
we say that whatever may be gained by the close contact
of one teacher with one or a few pupils in "individual les-
sons, is far from compensating the loss experienced by
the necessary absence of group or general training among
isolated children. No doubt they may, in this wise, learn

«

more through the teacher, but they will acquire less in-
tuition by themselves ; they will obey more integrally,
but they will not act so soon, nor so well by the impulse
of their free will ; they may understand more, but will'
certainly do less. In fact, the two modes of teaching act
so differently, and are so completive, not suppletive of
each other, that the best school is the one which includes
both; and consequently, a public institution must be
numerous enough to permit a rational classification, with-

INSTITUTION, 269

out reducing the groups to mere individualities. For this
vital reason, it would be advisable to unite the means and
efforts of two states to create a healthy institution, soonet
than to foster several in deplete conditions, unfavorable
to the circulation of activity among the children. But
this rule must only be affirmed in its most general terms,
and for public establishments.

If we are reluctant to fix a certain minimum of pupils
for an institution, we must be more cautious yet in regard
to fixing their maximum number. Evidently the more
numerous they are, the more easy would be the formation
of groups, if this operation needed not to be strictly
founded upon a thorough study of the individual cases.
Here lies the difficulty which may be stated in a very few
words : how many idiots may be studied, taught, and
treated with unity and comprehensibility, under a single
head, by a staff of officers ? "We do not say fed, warmed,
and kept at the lowest ebb of vitality ; we mean educated
and developed to the fullest extent of their capacity.
Unfortunately, experience in this matter is too young to
be invoked as a guide. Good common sense may help to
form a judgment ; but the question will evidently remain
open till practice shall have verified or corrected our con-
clusions. If we consider, as we think we must, an insti-
tution as a unit in itself representing the pathological
unit idiocy, we see that the children forming its body may
be grouped for the sake of training as are the symptoms
of idiocy, in various categories ; though the same child
will, of course, enter at successive hours of the day into
several of these groups.

.270 IDIPCT.

Muscular exercises will form at least five groups ; thpse
of the senses and speech, eight or ten ; drawing, writing,
•and reading, half as many ; object-naming, specifying,
qualifying, pricing, counting, about six ; the relation of
actions to persons and things, expressed by verbs, prepo-
sitions, etc., the same number ; all tqld, without reference
to outside labors, there would be above twenty groups of
pupils to be formed, to fulfil by their collection all the
physiological indications included in the treatment of
idiocy. Granting, on an average, that a group formed
for exercises of attention must not be composed of more
than five children, and that one formed for activity must
be under twenty, this gives us an average of ten children
to each group. If we suppose the .total number of pupils
to be one hundred and fifty or two .hundred, and a quar-
ter of them always engaged in outside work, we have a
maximum of one hundred and fifty pupils, forming fifteen
groups of ten, under five teachers and three gymnasts,
two groups to each, during six hours in the day. This
gives forty-eight hours of individual or group training to
fifteen groups, or three hours to each group. These three
hours are given entirely to individual and group teaching,
during which the child is expected to use his muscles,
senses, and brain, alone or with the encouragement of a fe'^
mates doing the same thing. In the three other hours ;he
is directly taught in the general training, or indirectly by
being made a witness to the close activity and expres-
sions of intelligence elicited from others, whose direct
teaching reacts upon him in proportion to his nearness.

The efficiency of this indirect training is enhanced by

msTiTu^TioN. 271

the capacity of the teacher for understanding what near-
ness means for every pupil, and in pfesence of every kind
of exercise. These, viz. the best conditions of percep-
tion, are extremely variable. A veiy small child will
scarcely pay attention to exercises of personal imitation
performed by a taller one, above his head, but will not
lose one of those performed at a suitable distance and on
a level with his horizontal line of vision. Then, to give
him a passive lesson of this kind, let us place him at the
proper height and distance of a group of imitating chil-
dren, and he shall learn often, from that stand-point, what
our direct and protracted patience fcould not teach him.
But this point of perception cannot be determined in the
abstract ; it varies according to the thing to be taught,
to the sense to be provoked, to the size, capacity, infirmity
of the child, and often to other anomalies to be ascer-
tained by experience. Altogether, three hours given to
direct, three hours given to indirect teaching, make
twelve classes of half an hour each, throilgh which each
idiot passes, without reckoning his general training, ac-
tive amusements, walks, etc. : the institution is made quite
a busy place for children but lately idle.

The general training and pleasure exercises being taken
.outside of the class-rooms at different hours, during which
•the attendants are on duty, one attendant being able to
take care of from five to twenty children, according to
how helpless these latter are ; they need not be more
numerous than the teachers, if their charges are not too
much crippled, or otherwise immovable. This number
of one hundred and fifty pupils in actual training seems

272 IDIOCY.

easy to divide into natural groups to mass and to move.
It is quite high, no djubt, if a man has to take all at once
possession of it, individually and collectively, and to for-
ward the treatment of each one and all, in an ascending
march. But as it is not often that anybody is called, at
short notice and without preparation, to such a duty, it
may be asserted that with a previous knowledge of the
old cases, a man of ordinary ability, well supported by his
assistants, as we shall see he must be, will always be able
to keep up the study of the new cases with the direction
of the mass. Therefore, without fixing any number to
the bulk of pupils fo'rming the body of an institution, we
must see that that body be not too heavy for the head,
nor the head too light for the body.

Having given our views for what they may be worth,
in reference to the selection of pupils and to their number
to form a school under a single direction, we have now to-
give an idea of what may be considered as the motor, sen-
sorial and intettectnal, of the institution, with its atten-
dants, gymnasts, teachers, and superior officers. We can
do this better by a review of their daily contact with the
children (in which the rotatory movement, systematically
exposed above, shall find, by the by, its natural illustra-
tion,) than by a formal drawing of their abstract functions.

The attendants are the persons most constantly in con-
tact with the children. To have one in each sleeping-
room, the servants of all the departments are expected to
do, at night, the functions of attendants. It is altogether
a light duty, but one which teaches them kindness to the
inmates who are the source, not to be lost sight of, where-

INSTITUTION, 273

from employment and salary come to them. Those' of
that class whose other functions begin early, are allowed
to room with the most intelligent children who require
only a short watching when going to bed, and in the morn-
ing from five to six o'clock. The real attendants hare to
wash, clean, and dress the children from five to seven a.m.,
with what help they have taught the higher grade of them
to give the lower. After this the pupils are amused and
waited in, or out of doors by one-half of the attendants,
while the others take their first meal. Before going to
breakfast the children are reviewed, one and all, by the
Superintendent. The attendants must repeat to him the
verbal report they made to the Matron about the night,
and give the particulars of what may have transpired
since they arose. This morning examination is no light
business to be trifled with, or trusted to half-competency.
In another place we have shown it to be the first step
towards the school room, or out of it ; here we present it in
its relations to the daily regulation of food, diet, hygiene,
and medical treatment. The verbal report of each atten-
dant on sleep, cleanliness, and health during the night, and
the morning written summary report of the Matron, are
confronted with each other and with the actual condition
of the children. Anything anomalous which has happened
or appears at the visit, must be the starting-point of more
minute inquiries, and lead to hygienic, or remedial mea-
sures beginning precisely before, or with the next meal.

At the close of this morning visit each attendant con-
ducts her children in small squads to breakfast, which is
served in small rooms, and according to habit or to special

274 IDIOCY.

prescription. There again the attendant is alone, aided
only by the more intelligent children, who feed with her
the more helpless, or proflFer other services. When break-
fast is over the children are cleaned again and their phy-
sical wants attended to especially, so that nothing of the
sort may interfere with the coming operations of the
training. Then the attendants transfer the pupils to their
teachers, and during school hours part of them tate
charge of the housework, part of the sewing, part of
them are allowed to rest. At and after lunch, dinner,
and supper, the same services are performed, after which
the attendants accompany their charge, conveniently
separated by ages and sexes, wherever the temperature
ipermits. "Here they are enjoined to not communicate
one with another, nor work, nor read, nor sleep, but to
be in direct communication with the children, making
them happy and lively with playthings and simple
devices ; at least making the lowest walk, without leaving
them drowsy and isolated. Some children listen to
stories, some are prevented from injuring themselves,
some are amused, some are gathered around a girl sing-
ing simple melodies. When the afternoon teaching is
over the attendants take final possession of their charge,
clean them again, passing through the same routine of
dflties, and after supper accompany them to the music,
dancing, plays of some sort, by which the day is closed.
After consigning the children to bed the attendants may
assemble for an hour or two of copversation, private
seeing, etc., preyious to resting themselves from th§ir
arduous duties. These have been arran,ged so tjhat fi*om

INSTITD,TION. 2.75

morning till night every attendant has been in active
service ten hours a day, almost all the . time near the
children. These indeed are trying Hours, if we consider
the responsibility of the. station, and the kindness to be
used as sole agency of obedience to orders, and of train-
ing to the habits of social life. The attendant cannot b.e
empowered to punish or coerce children, but to help and
incite them only ; hence the necessity, of choosing for
that function women very kind, gay, attractive, endowed
with open faces, ringing voices, clear eyes,, easy move-
ments, and affectionate propensity towards children.
These are their only but real po.wer; when it fails they
have to refer to their presumed superiors in intelligence,
and to borrow of th^m an authority which cannot be ex-
ercised but with a complete knowledge of the physio-
logical anomalies of each case. Thus is spent the tinie
of these good women, who attend to the idiots much in
the same manner as the monks of Spain of yore, and
the farmers of (prhel later, took care of the .insane, with

m

little science, but a great deal of charity.

They have been followed aU the while by the jMatron,
who sees that everything is right at bed-time, in the
middle of the night, and in the early morning. When
the first bell sounds, it is she who goes from bed to bed,
making sure that the sick are not taken out and bathed
to satisfy the uniformity of the rules. She soon kno.Mrs
who has been clean, quiet, orderly last night,; and wh,o
is qualified or, not for t£e occupations. qf the opening, day.
Thus she controls and confirms the correctness ,of .the
.reports of the attendants; at the sanje time .that,, by, h^

276 IDIOCY.

presence, she exacts that the children be treated in these
trying hours as she would treat them herself. It is out
of our plan to follow her in the exercise of her general
functions, which are so well understood. But idiots re-
quire a very different sort of maternal attendance from
that needed by other children gathered for charitable
purposes. As soon as the orders resulting from the morn-
-ing visit are received, she sees that they are carried into
execution. In the infirmary she attends to the applica-
tion of such dressings, and to the giving of such medicines,
as the children may have been ordered ; and at meals she
directs that the prescriptions relating to individual diet
are punctually executed. She never allows the children
to go out without seeing that each one is clothed accord-
ing to the peculiarities of his constitution and the tem-
perature. The feet and hands are the objects of her
greatest care in creatures whose circulation is mostly
sluggish or impaired at the periphery. When they re-
turn she should look at eac^i, to see if any one has fallen,
hurt himself or others, coughs, or suffers in any way. In
this kind of duties, of which we give only a few speci-
mens, the matron's role is active. At other times her
action becomes nearly or entirely silent or passive ; as
whenever the children are engaged in their various avoca-
tions with the teachers and gymnasts. There, without
saying a word unless for the most urgent reason, she
passes, remarking which among the many countenances
become weary, exhausted, listless; s"he notes these for
future observation, unless the uneasiness becomes so great
as to call for immediate interference. She presides at the

INSTITUTION. 277

festivities among the children ; at large parties, or weekly
njusic or dancing, or daily evening pastimes, of a pleasant
and informal character. And when the children have
been put to bed under her eyes, sooner or later according
to ages, she has not yet made them her last visit before
retiring to rest herself.

The Teachers begin their work together by leading the
children in the singing exercises of the morning; after-
which they go to their respective rooms, into which they
are followed most willingly by the pupils, very few of
whom need be directed to their proper places. Each
teacher has a prograaume of lessons and a series of groups
of children ; both adapted to each other in the table of
movements of which «very one has a copy. By this
table the teachers are allowed the same variety of exer-
cises as the children in respect : first, to the teaching, so
that two successive lessons shall not employ the same set
of organs, nor exact the use of the same intellectual func-
tions ; and second, to the persons, by changing, relatively,
children and teacher at each lesson, thus preventing the
moral fatigue which results from protracted and often
unsuccessful contacts of obedience and understanding.
But the teacher has many other things to do besides
teaching. She first places the children, as they come
each half-hour, in presence of their lessons, far or near
according to their wants, or to their individual capa-
city for 'immobility, attention, perception, etc., or to the
active or passive groups to which they temporarily belong.
She takes note of the impression made on the health of
every child, pushes or stops an exercise according to th^

278' IDIOCY.

depression, or more rarely to the exaltation it causes :
neyer aiming at imparting so much knowledge, but at
exercising such functions to Such an extent. These and
other accessory cares exact a great deal of her mental
power and vigilance, besides the fatigue of teaching pro-
per. After six hours so employed, in close contact, we
nearly said, combat, with the intellectual infirmities of her
pupils, the teacher is scarcely expected to fulfil any other
serious duties towards them. Nevertheless she must direct
them in their excursions, gathering insects, leaves, fiow-
ers, anything, by sort or kind ; and help them to arrange
these in collections ; and she has, besides, a busy hand in
all the representations, charades, dancing, extra and regu-
lar evening pleasures of the family. When she retires,
it is yet her duty to note anything particular which has
transpired about the children, or any remarks of hers
upon the teaching, suggested by her own experience of
the day. These notes cannot be confided to fugacious
memory, but must be written in a durable form and laid
like the material for the foundation of a better edifice
than the present method is, after having been discussed
in teachers' meetings, and submitted to the repeated tests
of experience.

The gymnast, though a teacher also, has functions which
differ, if not in their material mechanism, at least in some
particulars, from those just mentioned. His lessons are
more neatly divided into general,* group, and individual.
More than the teacher, he must be assisted by the more
intelligent and willing pupils, because he may command
with his single will many movements, but can correct

INSTITUTION. 279

only a few wrong ones with his own hands. Here the
help of idiots is doubly precious, since it trains the move-
ments of the lowest by the training of the intellect of the
highest ; the former learning to imitiate, the latter to rea-
son the imitation, besides developing his will ; clumsy
as these helpers look at first, they are valuable and soon
become precious. The gymnast seems to need,tnore than
the teacher, the quality of judging the point at which
each exercise must be carried by each child, to be physio-
logical and safe. He must know that point, strive to
attain it, feel it, and there stop : in this lies his talent and
the safety of the children. He is besides called to direct
the out-door sports, whose apparatus is changeable accord-
ing to temperature and locality ; to lend a useful hand to
the pleasure-parties of any sort given to the children ;
and is obliged, like the teachers, to write out in extenso
his observations on the children, and on his part of the
training.

As the Housekeeper takes charge of the girls as soon
as they are able to learn practical housework, so the stew-
ard has the management of the boys in the garden and
fields ; whilst all the persons working in the Institution
are expected to lend their assistance to the training of the
children in their special avocations. To sew, garden, or
wash for the establishment is well enough ; but to help
the children in doing .the same is better yet : in fact,
everybody here must be ready to turn into a teacher of
idiots. The duties of the steward, in particular, are im-
portant ; as in relieving the Superintendent of many gross
cares, leaving him more time for his intellectual func-

280 IDIOCY.

tions. But our delineation of the Institution is too gene-
ral to admit of following any one of its officers but in
their direct action on the training.

But so many persons are not expected to act in such
close concert of time and purpose, without conforming
their conduct to a plan strongly framed, the conception
of a singl^head. The Superintendent is or should be that
head. He is supposed to be prepared by special studies
to confront the important problems enclosed in the yet
mysterious word idiocy. His functions are many ; more,
we think, than he can well perform.

He has to manage delicate relations with the Legisla-
ture or corporations to insure the financial existence of the
institution. He has to keep open general and private
communications with the public, and with the families of
idiots : most parents needing to be educated to the point
of understanding what their children are, and what may
be done for them. In these respects he can scarcely do
too much ; since here, after fifteen years of voting, pay-
ing, printing, lecturing in favor of idiots, and notwith-
standing the practical training of above five hundred
pupils by State munificence, nine-tenths of our well-edu-
cated population, and more than one-half of physicians,
ignore the very existence of the New York State Institu-
tion at Syracuse.

Two other points require his special attention. When
the parents of idiots have become familiar with the object
of the school, he must make the mother understand the
advantage of her coming with her baby often, to be
advised on her future course, to see what training she can

INSTITUTION. 281

pick up and carry home, to not allow idiocy to be aggra-
vated by inactivity. And he must take advantage of
favorable incidents to sound the truth as to what she con-
siders the circumstances which had an influence on the
anormal condition of her child. All she says about it
must be i-ecorded, probable or unlikely, simple or mon-
strous, vulgar or supernatural. Time alone can permit a
judgment, not upon hundreds of such sayings, but upon
the comparisons of thousands. Provisionally these records
are allowed to sleep in theii; annual and alphabetical
order. But when the subjects of them become older, and
application is made for their adrrlission, these notes are
confronted with the actual status of the grown child ;
double foundation, copious and minute elements of a
future monograph. In this expectation no pains must be
spared to give the second report the fulness and clearness
it requires, to be used as the starting-point of a scientific
observation. In it the Superintendent insists upon the
circumstances of locality, hereditary constitution, parent-
age, alliance, conception, gestation, ■ labor, lactation, im-
pressions of the mother and nurse, dentition and infantile
ailments, early or progressive backwardness of the vital
manifestations, closing by a thorough description of the
same at the time of writing. The Superintendent who
interrogates the parents and asks from the functions of
the child an answer on all these points, begins to possess
his subject. "What the family or child cannot tell, his
means of investigation shall reveal. Next, the functions
of organic life are analyzed ; heat, respiration, circula-
tion, blood, urine, saliva, sweat, faeces, are submitted to

18

282 IDIOCY.

the tests of the new senRes of observation and comparison
created by the use of chemical reagents, the microscope,
the thermometer, the stethoscope, spirometer, dynamome-
meter, etc. The child is weighed, measured in his diverse
proportions ; his capacity for endurance and activity is
tested ; his powers of intelligence and speech are ascer-
tained ; his will and habits delineated ; a pen-and-ink
portrait is drawn of his whole being, and- kept together
with his photograph, as witnesses to the point at which he
began to be taught. Then the Superintendent, with a
perfect knowledge of his subject, may launch him among
the other children, not yet as an accepted pupil, but as a
probationer on an experimental treatment of observation.

Therefore the Superintendent must have an absolute
understanding of the children. Others may be more fa-
miliar either with their habits, capacities, or peculiarities ;
but none must know them so completely as himself.
Then come what may, resistance, obstacles in the train-
ing, etc., he knows what to believe and who to distrust,
and can truly superintend the work. This possession of
the character of .his pupils and of his subordinates is the
store which supplies his capacity ; out of it he draws his
best resources for the accomplishment of his subsequent
functions.

The most important of them is to take the lead of the
school movement ; operation by which the children are
distributed in efficient groups, and in which sufficient ex-
ercise of each of their functions is apportioned to every
one of them. He follows throughout the general training
the impressions made upon the health, progress, habits.

INSTITUTION. 283

of every child ; from which he deduces the propriety of
continuance, change, or simple modification, either in the
nature, length, or intensity of the multiform objects of
training. It is very difficult to understand how he can
delegate this duty for any length of time, without losing
the meaning of what is done in his name ; or how he can
relinquish it entirely, without assenting to a potential
abdication.

This active observation is particularly required for the
new pupils received on probation. Before their final
admission these children are to be studied in diverse
aspects. Being generally undersized and brought up in
inactivity, they are not expected to be as robust as
others; though not more sickly than the average; but
more than the average, afflicted with epilepsy, paralysis,
chorea, or secondary affections considered as obstructing
the channels leading to improvement. At any rate, any
^ne of these infirmities superadded to idiocy cannot im-
prove it. However, the Superintendent is to call discre-
tion and discrimination to his aid in the appreciation of
the character of both ailments. Is idiocy primary, or
consequent to, or simultaneous with the other affection ?
Does idiocy aggravate the other disorder, or is the re-
verse true ? Does idiocy require a treatment entirely op-
posed to the cure of the accessory disease ? Or does the
accessory disease need to be cured prior to treating idiocy,
or viee versd f What impediment or what help may the
treatment of one bring to bear upon the issue of the
other ? "What influence may the accessory affections of
one or of several children have upon the general training,.

284 IDIOCY.

or upon the nervous, imitative, or intellectual faculties
of an undetermined number of pupils ? "Will tbese ac-
cessory infirmities act by contagion, example, or like
dead weights on the institution ? These questions are not
of the kind for which written answers will do ; each case
containing its own solution, to be read from the symp-
toms, as they are evolved during the process ^of obser-
vation.

Another point to be studied in the new pupils with
no less attention, but of more general import, is the rela-
tion of their need and power of assimilation to their deper-
dition of force under the friction of newly imposed labor.
Prior to entering in training, these children derived a bare
sustenance from their food, abundant or scanty, rich or
meagre. In their new status they will need food ; 1st, as
previously, to support life ; but besides, 2d, to furnish the
elements of a larger growth ; 3d, to increase their vital
powers ; and 4th, to spend in their new activity. Wh»
will not admit that great change must be made in the food,
and great change must take place in the result of feeding,
to obtain great changes in the constitution, habits, and
functional manifestations of the n^w-comer ? And who
does not foresee that if the use of the best means of nutri-
tion does not go further than feeding the idiotic constitu-
tion in the idiot, he will never emerge from idiocy?
Therefore the first struggle between the Superintendent
and his pupil does not consist in showing him letters that
he will not look at, but in generating by food and hygienic
measures a given force to be spent and renovated in
increasing ratio : this is the A, B, 0. If, in spite of these

INSTITUTIOIf. 285

means, he does not gain, or actually fails, in his strength
during the period of observation, Nostalgia has taken pos-
session of him, or he has entered into his age of senility,
which begins for some idiots at the time ordinarily marked
for virility ; or he may be impervious to any of the modes
of rejuvenating the circulation. Prudence reserves the
final decision on the nature of the causes of this failure ;
whilst observation notes, calculates, weighs, measures the
vital forces ; and if these tests show any gradual decrease
under a treatment intended to invigorate, the child must
be turned over to the parents, at least temporarily.

But how could we restrictto the new pupils this double
survey of the effects of food and diet on the forces, and
of the influence of the production of forces on the treat-
ment? Does not every pupil every day require the same
watchfulness ? Does not the whole movement of the insti-
tution depend upon the sum-total of force produced by the
regulation of said equilibrium ; and does not the Superin-
tendent stand in regard to this harmony, in the same rela-
tion as the engineer in regard to the proportion of heat to
steam, of steam to weight to be displaced. In this respect
he will not allow himself to be imposed upon by reports
of ignorant subordinates, or by written prejudices.

The products of alimentation being the ultimate means
relied upon to raise the children from idiocy, they must be
fed, not to be filled, but to produce by nutrition the desired
force. But so far, any interference of science in the arts
accessory to feeding have produced only sophistication
and crime. Erostratus was a saint next to the chemist
who has taught millions how to adulterate wine and bread.

286 IDIOCY.

the two staples of civilized life. The theoretical division of
food into nitrogenized and non-nitrogenized is not so firmly
established as to authorize a Superintendent to risk upon it
the future of his children ; and the uncertainty of other
hypotheses must satisfy him conclusively that alimenta-
tion is not a science but an art. Of this art we know thus
much. Nourishment is the result, not so much of bulk, as
of variety ; the reason of this is, that man is omnivorous.
Consequently, that which nourishes the most is not always
the richest food, but the one most relished ; because being
desired, it produces an abundant secretion of salivary and
gastric fluids, by which the foRd is more thoroughly assimi-
lated than when it is indifferently swallowed. Another
consequence of this remark is that, setting apart the cases
of perverted tastes or Pica, the children themselves are
pretty sure judges of what is good for them ; and will tell
it to any one who will take the trouble of reading their
tastes on their countenances while they eat. As to quan-
tity, they are not so good judges,, their appetence often
wishing more than is required by their appetite ; this is a
matter to be regulated by experience.

But the future of the children does not depend only on
their feeding. Seasons, epidemics, accidents, individual
deficiencies, bring their unavoidable share of sickness — of
death even:

" Et la garde qui veille awo Iwrrieres dm Louvre,
N'en defend pas hs rois.''

But disease or impending death comes rarely upon idiots
in the open manner in which it ordinarily assails men.
They feel it more by a negation of feeling than positively j

INSTITlft'ION. 287

60 that questioning them is useless, and tlieir answers, if
they can speak, are deceptive. In this emergency, noth-
ing will do to settle the diagnosis, if not precisely as to the
disease, at least as to its lenient or dangerous natui'e, so
well as the use of the tests of vital forces already referred
to.* It is not in our plan to follow the idiot to hie sick-
bed ; the Superintendent who does it, knows more than we do
on the subject. One thing only we mark : let us remember
that in sickness as in health, the idiot is always laboring
more or less under his primary deficiency of nutrition.
But constant reference to the state of heat, circulation, and
respiration, will warn against the danger of asthenia.
We do not mean to say that the Superintendent is to put
these tests aside as soon as life is no longer in peril. We
mean, on the contrary, that he must use them for all the
pupils. These vital tests and the chemical, microscopical,
and other examinations of the condition of the functions
and secretions, are to be made and recorded monthly, and
oftener in special cases.

But the use of scientific appliances does not dispense
the Superintendent from measuring also the vitality of the
children by the physiological standard of their activity ;
to see whether they sleep, eat, play, study, labor with a
healthy soundness, or show traces of languor or restless-
ness in what they do or refuse to do. If these two kinds
of evidence coincide in their indications, they call for due
hygienic interference and instant modifications in the
training. Thus the Superintendent keeps his eye fixed

• See Aitken on "Wiiuderlich's practice ; and E. 0. Seguiu on the New-
York Hospital practice, in the Chicago Medical Journal for May, 1866.

288 IDI6GT.

upon the pupils, and his hand as if he were constantly
feeling the pulse of the institution.

However, many other things are to be done for the
children by others, and yet with a unity which can but
proceed from him ; and he cannot impress on the mind of
his assistants the direction of his own, without giving
much time to their training ; be they, or not, experienced
teachers, matrons, attendants, or others. He must give
them his plans of treatment to be carried out, and they
must impart to him their daitj^ experience in the progress
of individual training ; this interchange forms their bond
of union. By this constant exchange of views from the
general to the special, the Superintendent is not in the
least exempted from controlling the teaching on the spot.
There he will find that after years of experience, the best
teacher may act contrary to the laws of physiology, and
he may surprise himself learning new things in his art
from some peculiar incapacity of an idiot.

Besides, he endeavors not to spend an evening without
having some informal conversation upon the topics of the
day, advising changes, provoking verbal or written ex-
pressions of opinion from his subordinates. In this con-
stant intercourse familiar suggestions take the place of
orders, plans are laid for future labors, and materials are
accumulated to keep up the interest of the monthly
meetings. These meetings, central points wherefrom
radiate the views of the Superintendent, are occupied by
the reading of the reports of the family, of the girls and
the boys drawn up separately, of the school common to
both sexes, but distinct as to every part of the training.

INSTITUTION. 289

Attention is called by the Matron and the more intelli-
gent attendants upon domestic matters, and by teachers
and gymnasts upon new points pertaining to the training.
Extra tasks of observation are assigned to competent
parties, changes are prescribed, and new orders given,
closing by the reading of short essays on the various in-
cidents of the last month's labors, health, etc. Very
few, if any, of these essays must assume the tabular form,
in which children, habits, progress, exercises, are reduced
to figures. On the contrary, it is desirable that they be
intimately connected with the treatment of specified in-
dividuals, even with a very limited part of it, provided
the observation be thorough. These fragments must be
classified with the other documents pertaining to the
history of the same child, and will be found invaluable
for the formation of monographs.

Every year the Superintendents of the various schools
for idiots should meet, to impart to one another the dif-
ficulties they have encountered, the results of their ex-
perience, and mostly to compare the books containing
their orders and regulations. These books, the embodi-
ment of the past and future life of the institutions, are
not so much the personal property of those wUo fill them
with their creative and organizing genius, as that of so-
ciety, which lavishes money upon the schools, not only to
improve idiots, bnt to spread the means adapted to their
improvement. In the same spirit the Superintendents
might agree upon a system of temporary exchange of
teachers and attendants. This would be very beneficial
in grafting from school to school certain peculiarities of

29<J IDIOCY.

training nearly impossible to transmit by writing, and
would offer pleasant change and relaxation to trusty
officers after faithful and protracted service.

Then the Superintendent should consider the important
questions relating to the propagation of schools for idiots
where they may be needed ; to the creation of asylwna
proper, in which adult idiots, left friendless or imperfectly
improved, might find a happy home; to the opening of
special hospitals in which choreic, epileptic, and other-
wise nervously affected children might be treated, instead
of being, as actually they are, a dead weight upon the
institutions. This enumeration only opens the series. In
regard to the theory and practice of their art, they should
ascertain the precise point at which stands their own
knowledge of the nature and origin of idiocy ; their skill
in diagnosis and treatment ; and the elucidation of the
physiologieal questions involved in the theory of the
training. After these and kindred queries have been
answered, or proposed as problems to be solved at future
meetings, they should consider the relation of their art to
the scientific world. Few and perfect monographs are
to be issued from time to time ; the publication of worksi
upon some* analytical points of physiological education
is to be encouraged ; public lectures on the less abstruse
points of the treatment of idiots might be tried ; and a
pecuniary interest taken in a Medico-Psychological Re-
view, in which the ideas and the tendencies of the school
might be advocated. The physicians to the insane have
to be shown that, next to the moral treatment handed
down to them by Willis, Pinel, and Leuret, the physio-

iNSTirtmoN. 291

logical training that has been so far restricted to the
treatment of idiots, may accomplish great things in the
way of correcting false ideas, and particularly perverse
sensations in the insane. Finally, at these meetings some
means must be devised to make common-school teachers
familiar with the ensemble of the resources offered by the
physiological method to develop harmoniously the whole
being in our children.

It is thus apparent that great responsibilties rest upon the
Superintendents and upon the trustees who employ them,
in carrying out the immediate and remote objects of the
foundation of schools for idiots. Narrow eagerness in the
pursuit of some points in the practice; remissness in
analytical inquiry ; neglect of the synthetical problem of
physiology ; dropping of the scientific and social corolla-
ries already issuing from the doctrine of physiological
treatment and education ; such are some of the evils
which may bring down a school for idiots to the level of
a richly endowed poor-house.

Happily these warnings are founded more upon that
difficulty, inherent to human nature, by which we are
incapacitated for fully carrying theory into practice, than
upon any positive symptoms of decay in the young insti-
tution. It looks healthy and vigorous ; it spreads far in
lands where freedom is cherished, and deep in the hearts
of those who first acknowledged their bonds of brother-
hood with the suffering many ; it rises in solid reality
among the monuments of learning and benevolence ; it
arose as one of the mature' realizations of the gospel on
earth, that nothing can destroy ; it wanted only a better

292 IDIOCY,

exponent of its principles ; this insufficiency we have
kept in mind, though it is mitigated by the consciousness
of having once more accomplished our duty towards our
Master, our pupils, and a holy idea.

APPENDIX.

NOTES,

EEMAEK8, BKETCHEB, AlfD PAUTIAL 0BSEEVATI0N8 COL-
LECTED TO FACILITATE THE STUDY AND ILLUSTEATE THE
TEEATMENT OF IDIOCY AND ITS C0NGENEE8.

OuE subject needs illustration as much as any one treated
of in text-books ; and it would not have marred it, if we
could have interspersed its pages with profuse and cor-
rect engravings of children, apparatuses, school-rooms,
etc. But as its most important parts are of a purely intel-
lectual nature, as descriptions of features, countenances,
defective or effective functions, the delineations of a truly
philosophical artist, armed with the surest burin, could
hardly have expressed the most material aspect of these
idealities, leaving yet to the writer the task of depicting
the mind. Therefore we dismissed, for the present at
least, the idea of asking the help of an engraver, and
relied upon the pen of our friends and our own to fix
durably the multiform or typical characters of our sub-
ject. And however defective may appear these sketches
in an artistic point of view, we hope that they will be
perused by the persons who love the idiot, and have de-
voted their life to his improvement ; because the study of
the cases here presented, even imperfectly, will open the
comprehension (^ all others.

It seems quite appropriate to begin these sketches with
short notices of cases in which the condition of the child

296 IDIOCY.

has been, justly or not, attributed to certain circumstances
which happened at the time he became idiotic ; circum-
stances, therefore, considered as causes of idiocy.

Heredity, as a presumed cause of idiocy, is well exem-
plified in the case of H., with his brothers and sisters,
soon to be giyen as a type of hydrocephalus. (See
Observation XIX.) But hereditary degeneracy does not
always follow in a family a gradual progression. Far
from it. Other things being equal, we find the low types
of humanity rising, and those arrived at their perfection
rather degenerating, not by a slow degradation but by a
sudden fall ; particularly when the mother is the one
which has attained the acme of perfection, or surer yet
when both wife and husband have. At this stage of hu-
man elevation, if the race does not become extinct, it is
continued by some fine children, among whom one is
found idiotic, paralyzed, or subject to contractures ; or the
whole stock is tainted in various ways, every child bear-
ing a partjcular mark of the degradation. The case of
Emma N. (Obs. XLYIII.) is of the first class, and the
following shall characterize the second.

Observation I. — ^We attended in France a family
whose heads were truly types of perfection : the woman
for beauty, grace, and intelligence ; the man for male
vigor, cunning, and far-sightedness. They were, appa-
rently, blessed with children worthy of themselves ; for
excepting one girl, whose beauty was altered by a
varicose condition of the capillary net\^ork of the face,
all the others appeared,well, and were certainly charming ;
the whole family in a carriage looking like a rich bou-

APPENDIX. 297

quet of select flowers. But to look at them more closely,
one tall girl in her tenth year had one leg shorter and
thinner than the other, difference whose increase could
be stopped, not outgrown ; another sister gave unmistaka-
ble signs of tuberculization ; whilst the freshest-looking
.of all was secretly a prey to epilepsy. At first it was a
simple twitch on one side, soon the face became involved
in the spasm, and finally the disease was, or appeared,
incurable. Its effects on the body made the affected side
weaker, and on the mind left a backwardness which sub-
sequent and stronger attacks might convert into imbecility
or dementia, with more or less paralysis. .

Obs. II. — Mrs. D., a very refined woman of temperate
habits, was no sooner pregnant with her fourth child than
she began to drink one quart of brandy a day, and con-
tiuued to do so, her head being never affected, till de-
livered of a boy. Though she and her husband were re-
markably swarthy, her child was pearly white, with the
lightest red hair, and idiotic : she never touched brandy
since.

Obs. III. — Mrs. T. did not care whether she married or
not ; but as soon as she was with child, she felt a strong
antipathy for her husband, looked for all sorts of excite-
ment, even of the most ferocious and brutal character;,
and would stare for hours at scenes once perfectly repulsive
to her educated and normal tastes. At such times, nothing,
even hungeror shame, could detach her eyes from the
horrible, even bloody sight ; and she felt at the time as if
this monstrous craving was exacted imperatively by an

abnormal state of the womb acting like a stranger's will

19

298 IDIOCY.

in li&u of her mental volition. This state lasted till a girl
■was born, large, fleshy, healthy; but whose condition was
very exceptional, to say the least of it. At eleven
years her health was florid, her flesh immense, her form
woman-like in every respect ; she had already menstruated
after several haemorrhages endangering her life. Morally •
she is ready to be led astray by any one, anywhere, with-
out any idea of right or wrong, but by a natural propen-
sity ; otherwise, she is affectionate in the proper direc-
tion, and loves dearly her younger brother. Mentally,
she is extremely simple ; can scarcely read, write, or
count, has no perception of colors, nor of any other pro-
perties of bodies. She cannot be trusted tc cross the
street, to set a table, to do anything ; though she is more
than strong — powerful. She, upon our advice, entered
recently one of our institutions ; with what result, remains
to be seen.

Obs. IV. — " A little girl flve years old. She was bitten
by a rabid cat in July, 1847, being at that time one year-
and nine months old. Previous to that time she was a
healthy child, and intellectually forward for one of her
age ; talking a good deal and very distinctly. Soon after
the bite, she was taken with diarrhoea and vomiting,
which lasted six weeks, during which period her voice
changed, and the sore on her face occasioned by her bite
reopened. On the disappearance of these symptoms, she
was taken with violent convulsions, continuing for twelve
hours. Her face was afterwards red and distended, and
her eyes possessed an unnatural glow. For the three fol-
lowing days, she had all the terrible symptoms of hydro-

APPENDIX. 299

phobia ; tearing the bed-clothes, and attempting to bite
those around her ; unable to bear the sight of water, and
also to swallow any, together with a frequent recurrence
of the spasms. At the end of this period, animation was
suspended, and to all appearance she was dead. At the
expiration of half an hour she revived, but with returning
spasms; not, however, as severe as the previous ones.
These continued for more than twenty-four hours, when it
was found that she had forgotten everything previously
acquired, and had lost the power of speech. In a few
weeks she gained strength to walk, and then walked in-
cessantly during the day for five months, disregarding
everything. She continued to have spasms occasioned by
fear, as at the sight of a dog or cat. She remained in this
condition for fifteen months, not recognising her own
parents, ignorant of her own name, and utterly incapable
of imitating anything. From that time, owing to a change
of medical treatment, she began to improve in her bodily
health, sleeping well by night, though still very restless
by day.

" She came under my -charge not quite two years ago,
a child of prepossessing appearance, of wonderful acti-
vity and fearlessness (to such a degree, as to give currency
in the village where she resided, that she had received by
her bite some of the feline nature), of a sweet disposition,
and with her intellect only needing to be brought under
the control of the will, though without the power of
speech. She had a great imitative faculty, and tried to
talk, but had lost control over the muscles necessary to
articulation.

300 IDIOCY.

" She is DOW much more quiet ; understands everything
that is said to her ; can distinguish colors ; has learned
the names of many objects on printed cards, speaking the
names of a few of them ; she can put away all the letters
of the alphabet in theii- 'places on a letter-boa,rd, and is
beginning to learn their names. In the matter of articu-
lation, her progress has not been as rapid as I anticipated,
owing to the apparent paralysis from her hydrophobia,
but from the success I have already had, I do not hesitate
to predict that she will yet learn to speak. No one who
has visited the school will fail to recognize the subject of
this description, or, I think, to trust in the fulfilment of this
prediction on my part." — (Dr. H. B. "Wilbur's Annual
Keport of 1853.)

Obs. Y. — " Ed., brought to the New York Institution
when seven years old ; could not walk from paraplegia ;
legs very dry and small, contracted inwardly ; body und.er-
eized ; head proportionate ; eyes good, but rather flashing
in every direction, with a sickly brightness. Could talk
but after three years ; has yet a defective speech ; is very
fond of music ; highly excitable, easily calmed ; begins
to learn satisfactorily, and to walk with a support. He is
said to have been a seven-month child. His mother
ascribes his condition to her own moral impressions during
gestation, mostly to fright." — (Dr. H. B. Wilbur's Reports.)

Obs. YI. — Mrs. B. came out from a ball-room, gave
the breast to her baby, three months old ; he was taken
with spasms two hours after, and since is a confirmed
idiot and epileptic.

Obs. YII. — In a moment of great anxiety, Mrs. C.

APPENDIX 301

jumped in a carriage with her suckling, a girl of fifteen
months, so far very intelligent and attractive. The child
took the breast only once in a journey of twenty miles,
but before arriving at destination she vomited several
times, with no other interruption than that of coma ;
and after an acute fever, the little girl settled down into
the condition of a cripple and an idiot.

Obs. Vin. — A., a child three months old, presented a
strange disparity of .both hemispheres; the left being
more forward than the right. The right occipital and
posterior part of the parietal bones were flattened, flexible
under a moderate pressure ; the integuments rosy, sweaty,
denuded of hair;. there was constant drowsiness; child
looked exactly like ati idiot. But it being noticed that
the child was put to bed always on the flattened side, the
reverse was prescribed ; and soon being laid every alter-
nate day on each side, he became lively, and his head
assumed normal conditions of shape, resistance, and color,
in about three months.

Obs. IX. — Br., whose head was encased during half a
year in a narrow, pointed flannel cape, which did not
grow larger by washing, had a few convulsions, which were
treated, and apparently cured, only by removing with
that cape the pressure it caused on the head, which soon
lost its pear-like shape, and his eyes their squint.

Obs. X. — Mrs. H., ignoring that she was with a second
child, continued to -nurse with her own milk her first-born.
This one, eight months old, from rosy became waxy ; her
head seemed to grow larger, and a few months later it
measured 26 inches in circumference : the nutrition of the

302 IDIOCY.

eecond child preventing that of the first, and hydro-
cephalus with idiocy followed deficiency of nutrition.

Obb. XI. — Mrs. C, nursing a fine boy when she was
Buffering from intermittent fever, he became choreic and
idiotic.

The measles, hooping-cough, scarlatina, and other infan-
tile diseases seem many times followed by the same defi-
ciency of nutrition, which in some manner arrests, the
development of the nervous system and produces deafness,
csecity, paralysis, contractures, according to some ub-
known idiosyncrasy, and idiocy or imbecility according
to the age of the patient.

The circumstances above presented, mostly by parents,
as causes of the idiocy of their children, are not here
endorsed as such ; but offered to increase the collection o f
hypotheses on the subject, and hasten their rejection or
final admission among the scientifically acknowledged
facts.

Our last task being to show idiocy in all its modes, we
shall begin it by the description of a child who might be
offered as the typical idiot.

Obs. XII. — ^Emma was brought, for she could not walk,
when eight years old, into the experimental school at
Albany. Neither standing, sitting, nor lying, but some-
what reclining in sunken postures, she had some feelings,
but no control over her muscles. In proof of which, if
she was pricked with a pin she would scream, but not
remove the interested part; or one could put a finger
upon her eyeball, and she would not so much as wink to
escape that touch. She had not will enough to grasp

APPENDIX. 303

anything in lier hand, nor to move her head, and no mind
to use her senses like a baby three months old. He? only
willed movement consisted in throwing herself violently
backward and balancing her head when in anger. She
did not speak a word, but had been heard to hum a por-
tion of a popular melody ; she had but few feelings, it was
said, but had a taste, and quite a peculiar taste too; for
she would eat nothing but sponge-cakes and drink nothing
but weak tea. If anything else was offered to her, she
would give utterance to the loudest screams. But even
that precious cake had to be placed at certain hours of
the day in the back part of her mouth to be ^cked down,
in the total absence of mastication and deglutition. She
was also absolutely unclean and impotent. In these last
respects her want of voluntary movement was so com-
plete that it absolutely simulated paralysis. Her senses
were useless, except the taste, which we have seen limited
to the appreciation of a single object of nutrition. Her
voice was never articulated ; her instincts and intelli-
gence were greatly inferior to those of most animals ; she
could do nothing, understand nothing, and willed nothing,
except when wanting sponge-cake.

Let us now see what Dr. Wilbur did for her, and
through her for the progress of our art. He says : *
" Let me briefly describe the stages iij the calling forth of
the voluntary motion and sensation. I commenced then
from the known. In the case of Emma it was nearly

* Some Suggestions on the Principles and Methods of Elementary In-
struction. By H. B. Wilbur, M.D.

IDIOCY.

confined to sensation in the back part of the mouth.
Witk a piece of sponge-cake on a fork I drew gradually
(as in successive lessons) the sensation of taste forward on
the tongue, then to the lips ; desire, prompted by appetite,
followed close to the heels of sensation. Soon I was able
by touching the lips, the mouth at its sides, and above
and below, to make her reach her head forward, to turn
it herself from side to side, and up and down, in pursuit
of the desired morsel. The sense of smell was somewhat
educated meanwhile, and she also raised her head for the
same purpose. Occasionally, when she failed to get the
cake through my impertinence in drawing it away, she
drooped backward with a discouraged air. In the exer-
cises here hastily sketched I had accomplished this much ;
master and pupil were brought into a conscious relation.
Sensation was extended ; voluntary motion, to gratify the
appetite, was induced.

" I wished now to secure voluntary effort in the way
of balancing herself, as a preliminary to marching and
standing alone. Placing her in an erect position, with her
back against the wall and her feet on an oil-cloth, and
sitting myself on a chair in front of her, I held her body
up with one hand, and with the other kept her knees
from bending ; her whole weight was thus thrown upon
her unaccustomed limbs. Then guiding her feet with my
feet, I allowed her to slip forward till her position be-
came quite uncomfortable. After a few moments I re-
stored her to a more comfortable position by pushing
back her feet. This was repeated for some time, till to
my joy she took the hint, and, to relieve herself, slightly

APPENDIX. 305

drew back one foot. ' Now, miss,' I exclaimed, ' your
education in locomotion is begun, rest for to-day.'

" In another lesson or two she learned to step backward
continually and regularly, then sideway, then foi'ward,
then in the baby-jumper, where, for the sake of comfort,
she had to learn how to make Toluntary efforts to stand
on her legs. With such and similar methods she learned
to walk, to stand, and to sit down, etc.

" I now wished to put her hand under the control of
her will. Holding her wrist, I placed in her soft palm (for
she made no effort to grasp at anything) various objects
hot and cold, smooth and rough, light and heavy. She
at last knew she had a hand. After a while I succeeded
in inducing an effort (voluntary on her part), not to grasp
the object, but to drop it by a slight motion. This I en-
couraged till she positively dropped it at a time I thought
that she perceived a connexion between the dropping of
the body and the noise and jar as it fell at her feet, as-
sisted perhaps by my simultaneous explanation. Acting
upon this, and with the impelling influence of my
stronger will, which she now began to appreciate, I at
last secured the end I had in view, and she held what-
ever I gave her. I should mention that heavy bodies are
held more readily than light ones."

Here is from an experienced hand the representation of
the struggle against the ultimate inertia of idiocy. For in
this duel, simple as it may appear, are included the most
difficult problems of the muscular and nervous training,
besides the demonstration of the action of the will of the
master to create the will in the unwilling idiot. Under

306 IDIOOT.

this rule Emma improved much, and still, as might have
been expected, was yet a very low idiot when she died
A few lines tell the tale, but a volume of the size of this
could hardly analyze the means of instruction resorted to
for her training.

The next case is that of a girl who could at least stand
on her legs ; that much, and not much more.

Obs. Xin. — Nine years ago K., then eight years old,
•could stand on her legs, but not pass from the standing to
the -sitting posture, or moe versd, without the greatest
diflSculty ; owing to the inability of her will to command
even the movements of totality: seated she remained,
standing she stood; gently pushed, she would move for-
ward without raising her legs, only sliding her feet on the
floor. Seen advancing in this manner, her body rigid,
her hands hanging, her head bending forward, and
crowned by short, black, profuse hair, overshadowing her
bright look flashed to a distance without fixed object, she
looked like a little Velleda.

Now she writes, reads, counts, and sings ; she speaks
slowly, but quite garrulously when interested, and inter-
rupts her ordinary great seriousness by an occasional
smile very sweet. She is industrious and faithful to any
kind of work commanded without needing supervision.
At school she behaves with a remiarkable attention and
willingness to fulfil her part ; and when the exercises are
over, she often passes her arm, with a tenderness not
devoid of grace, around the waist or shoulder of some
younger girl, and goes away patting her. By spells she is
gloomy and likes to retire- in the dark out of the way ; but

APPENDIX. 307

many intelligent girls of her age do worse than that in
the same circumstance. We think she will never be
capable of governing herself entirely, not on account of
any imperfection, but of limitation of her common sense ;
which is all that could be wished in its kind, if she had
enough of it. Though her features have lost her infantile
loveliness, and she no more resembles the Gallic priestess,
her goodness makes friends of any one who knows her.

Obs. XIY. — V. did not begin to speak until after four
years. His mother attributes his idiocy to frightening
impressions received when she was already three months
enceinte, and lasted during the whole period of gestation.
He had the measles in infancy; and being frightened
himself at that time, had some sort of convulsions : rather
vague record of the beginning of an interesting case of
low idiocy, susceptible of great improvement. When V.
entered the New York Institution, he was ten years old ;
his head narrow and elongated, presented forward a low
forehead, and parsim hard nodosities of the skull along
the sutures. His sight, hardly ever directed by the will,
had affected the up and side-way fixedness ; his uncertain
gait, and the inefficiencyof his hand, characterized the de-
gree of his affection ; he spoke a little, and knew three let-
ters. Me remained above a year among the doubtful cases
kept on observation ; but at last, warmed and carried by
the insensible and nearly irresistible force of the general
training, he betook himself to do and to learn, though
with a characteristic slowness. His eyes have become
quite natural, and his features are sweet. His look devi-
ates yet slightly once in a while from its normal direction ;

308 IDIOCY.

he follows the exercises of the groups to which he belongs
with equal obedience and willingness. In a few years he
will be able to take his place among the useful pupils in
the institution, and later, we expect in the world.

The case of Y. is remarkable for the absence of the
mechanical or even' automatic movements of the fingers
which generally accompany the side-way look. Not only
there is no mention of them in his records ; but if they
had existed, the passive training of the first period of his
education would not have been very likely so successful.
ITevertheless, this child offers a good illustration of the
power of the general training when the individual train-
ing would fail : the reverse is true in other instances.

Obs. XV.. — " James was admitted into the Penn. Train-
ing-School in February, 1857. We have never looked
upon a more repulsive object than poor James. On his
first visit, every one instinctively shrunk from his contact;
his closely-shorn hair decreased the really small diameter
of his head, and made more frightfully disproportionate
the ponderous jaws and "high cheek-bones. There was
great obliquity of the eyes, which rolled upwards and ex-
posed a large amount of the white ; his lips seemed defi-
cient in width, and were drawn tensely against his scur-
vied, bleeding gums, and decayed, irregular teeth, which
were constantly revealed ; his skin was of a dirty color,
and blotched with a disagreeable eruption ; his body was
very much bent; his arms hanging in front of him, or
raised to allow his long, cold, and bony fingers to pass over
the face or hands of the person with whom he might be
sitting. He could not stand erect, his limbs were so con-

APPENDIX. 309

tracted ; and his straddling gait, and crouched form, as
he hobbled across the floor, reduced him, in appearance,
to something less than human. When undisturbed, his
body continually swaying to and fro, his head thrown far
back, his eyes rolling towards the ceiling, and his mouth
widely open, he certainly illustrated; in his person, the
description of the Swiss cretin, while his intellect was per-
haps more clouded than the average of that class of unfor-
tunate creatures.

" His only expressed want for many days was for
marbles. The eager inquiry was always put, when any
person was preparing to go out, ' Where you going ? '
then followed the request, ' Me want marbles ! ' W'hen the
marbles were purchased for him, he kept them in his
pocket, their jingle affording him indescribable amusement.
" Thus was James ; pale, emaciated, and almost help-
less ; expressionless and inoffensive ; apparently the low-
est and most unpromising type of idiocy. We make use
of the last sentence with the full consciousness of its import ;
we mean that no promise could be given, and but little
hope entertained of his improvement.

" We allowed him to sit in our school-room, and watched
the effect of music and the children's exercises upon him ;
his head Avas thrown farther back, his long bony neck
seemed lengthened, his naturally repulsive physiognomy
heightened in repulsiveness. Was this, could this be an
expression of pleasure ? It was indeed, and as such we
treasured it. Beads were placed in his hands ; of these he
soon became fond ; and while in the gymnasium his stif-
fened and tottering limbs had been taught to climb a lad-

310 IDIOCY.

der ; in the Bchool-room, the vacant restless eyes had been
fixed on a plate of beads and the intellect elicited, not
created, that could guide him in the rapid selection and
arrangement of colors. After several months' labor, the
pleasing report came that James could arrange beads by
threes, with intermediate buttons ; and as a test of his
power of numeration, the question was given : ' How many
legs has a cow ? ' His answer was ' Two ! ' ' Oh ! James !
put on your cap, go out to that field, and count how many
legs that cow has ? ' James moved off ; this was the first
time those bent limbs had followed out an object requiring
continued thought ; he made a direct line for a cow in
the distant meadow ; a few yards brought him to a
pointed, pale fence; after sundry scratches of his skin,
and rents in his clothes, he scaled the sharp angles of the
fence, and again moved on ; squeezing between the rails
of a second fence, he at length reached the place where
the cow was standing; and now commenced a most amus-
ing investigation. He walked around on all sides, some-
times would go on hands and knees, and was thus engaged
the greater part of a summer's morning. At length he
was brought to dinner, and the conversation of the morn-
ing resumed. ' How many legs has a cow? ' ' Four legs.'
' How many horns has a cow ? ' ' Two horns.' ' How
many eyes has a cow ? ' ' Two eyes.' Thus James had
accomplished a lesson, as deep and new to him as the
most complicated invention, or most abstruse theory that
ever excited genius.

" Having made these important essays, he now began
to notice everything that occurred about him. Yisitors

APPENDIX. 311

entering are critically inspected, and his observing and
sensi^ve mind is often exhibited, when his face flushes in
deep crimson, at such thoughtless remarks, as : ' Oli I
what a creature,' ' How repulsive.'

" An idiot has been defined as one who cannot enume-
rate twenty, measure a yard of cloth, etc. James, with a
little patient attention, soon counted twenty, and now fifty
or more. His tongue is loosened, and he often engages
in animated conversation with his teachers, and recalls
with facility many of the associations of his home from
which he has been separated a long time.

" His mother has been deceased many years, and her
place supplied by a faithful step-mother. As an instance
of wonderful filial affection, we will add the following
anecdote of James : One Sabbath day, the children had
been much entertained with an account of heaven ; it
was called our heavenly home ; the home to which we
would all go some day, and be with our parents and
friends. An hour had elapsed, and other exercises had
been engaged in, when, in pleasantry, the question was piit,
' All the children who would like to go home and see
their friends hefore dinner, stand up ! ' To go without
dinner was a sober loss to contemplate, and but few arose ;
but among the latter was poor James. They were asked
if they would not rather wait until vacation ; most con-
sented, but James still stood. ' Why, James, you do not
want to go to F. and leave us, do you ? ' ' No, nol me
want mother in heaven ! ' That boy had been im-
pressed in his soul by the simple remarks of an hour pre-
vious ; they had remained with him, and his act was

812 IDIOCY.

responsive to the affection that revived in his breast, with
the remembrance of a long-lost mother. \

'' Repulsive as James is in ^appearance, the goodness
and gentleness of his manners, and the real intelligence
he now exhibits, are winning him many friends ; he is
watched with interest by periodical visitors to our institu-
tion, who are delighted in his progress in block-building,
reading, etc. He is now able to read a great many words,
and writes several letters and figures on his slate." — (Dr.
J. N. Kerlin, The Mmd Uwveiled. Phil. 1858, p. 121.)

If it could be said that there was, in the desolate appear-
ance of James, a great deal due to his neglected condition
after the death of his mother, neglect making the idiot look
worse and be worse than idiocy does itself, the same attenu-
ation of the diagnosis cannot apply to the following case :

Obs. XYI.-:7E. was one of the first inmates of the
school established temporarily near our Legislature to give
its members the opportunity of appreciating its practical
value. He is represented as being, in 1851, a tall, well-
formed boy of thirteen ; if not for a squint, good-looking ;
though he was and proved to be an idiot of the kind re-
fractory to intellectual improvement. He looked neat,
and yet was not clean in his habits. He could eat and
partly dress alone, but had never been able to tie his shoe-
strings or cravat. He had used up any amount of books, and
was only said to be a slow scholar, whereas the truth is that
he did not then know the letters. And yet, except in the
vacancy of his look and the light swinging of his walk,
no body would have detected in him the unmitigated
idiot he was.

APPENDIX, 813

This opposite discrepancy between the external signs
of idiocy and idiocy itself, was due to the extreme care
taken of him from infancy. Nurses and teachers had
been constantly employed ; his mother had bestowed
upon him those tender admonitions and caresses which
imprint themselves on all hearts without the mediation of
intellect ; the reverse appearances as just described in
James are too often met with. As K- was brought up ten-
derly (tliough remaining greatly idiotic by his mental
incapacity), he carried and developed, through his half suc-
cessful training, those moral qualities which endear the
lowest to the highest, and indeed make all equal who
equally love.

It would be unprofitable to narrate the difiSculties en-
countered in the training of that young man. SufiSice it
to say that, with all his teachers and attendants at home,
he could not, coming under the care of Dr. Wilbur, count
two, nor read, nor write, nor distinguish red from white,
nor be trusted on the simplest errand ; and we could say
that he forgot everything, if it was proved that any tran-
sient thing ever made a durable impression on his senso-
rium.

Starting from this state of sensorial and intellectual
inferiority and of moral rectitude, fifteen years of train-
ing, more or less active, always enlightened, made him, not
a scholar, but a trusty, faithful, affectionate young man ;,
whose dark hair is already sprinkled with gray ; whose aim
is to obey and please, to work and be useful ; in which he
succeeds well in the garden and fields. Could it be doubted

that the hardship of the task of his eager teachers was

20

814 IDIOCY.

greatly lessened by the moral elements deposited in his
"bosom by motherly affection ? Then let us see him at
work. He tries to read, or write, or draw, and succeeds
very well, till by the effect of fatigue, distraction, or the
slightest moral disturbance, he hesitates, becomes con-
fused, and stops. ]^o thing more can go on. But if we
encourage him kindly, and let him understand that his
mother will be pleased if he does this or that, becomes a
good boy, etc. To please her, for no other consideration only
to please her, he again harnesses himself to the heavy
task, which, for us, may be nothing but the light running
of a pencil on a black-board, but which takes so much of
his nervous power, that in the effort his reddened face and
hands are soon covered with a heavy perspiration, and he
soon appears more exhausted than after five hours of
plowing .... To please his mother. *

Obs. XVII. — Profound Idioay — Normal Crwnial Con-
figuration — No CompUcabion. — Armand B., aged six
years, is of a sanguine temperament, of an athletic con-
stitution for his age (one would suppose him nine or
ten years) ; has had neither diseases nor infirmities. His
face and cranium are of a low and vulgar type, are
not perfect in their harmony, but without notable depres-
sion. The relation of the trunk with the extremities,
the equality of both sides of the body, the muscular
development, the warm color of the integuments, the
abundance of rough and close hair, the erect habit of the
head and trunk, the constant agitation of the feet, arms and
fingers, which fatigue does not diminish, the normal shape
of the organs of speech and generation, the thick and

APPENDIX. 315

heavy chest, the strong and arched vertebral column, the
rather prominent and hard abdomen — such are the ex-
ternal signs of the condition of Armand. His activity is
indefatigable as well as useless ; his entire nervous sys-
tem seems a prey to an irritable weakness which particu-
larly concentrates itself upon the organs of speech and
prehension. The hearing of music and the approach of
a storm heightens this nervous state, the acting centres of
which appear seriously affected, if we are to judge by
the following physiological symptoms : Relaxation of the
sphincters; voluntary movements few; mechanical and
disordered movements ceaselessly* alternating; the articu-
lar flexions of the lower extremities nearly impossible ;
immobility impracticable, as the feet will not come to-
gether ; walk assisted by an arm, jerky and swinging ;
ascent; and descent very difficult with the help of bannis-
ters ; run and jump null ; prehension of bodies null except
that which consists in holding with three fingers threads,
which Armand raises above his head, and which he looks
at while drawing them out to their last extremity. This
child lean receive and hold nothing in his hand ; can send
back nothing; cannot voluntarily leave off anything; can
throw nothing except his plate or any other object which
he pushes from off the table ; he can neither eat nor dress
alone ; his tactile sensibility is so obtuse that one of his
most assiduous pleasures is to strike with the back of his
hand or fist the walls and all that surround him ; he isin-
, different to the smell of excrements, and the sweetest
odors seem equally to have no effect upon his olfactory
nerves ; the taste is not more acute ; generally the look

816 IDIOCY.

is vague, although very brilliant, and at times carried to
the right and to a certain height ; the strong and vibrating
voice produces only cries nearly all akin to M-M-M, by
two or by three emissions at most, with rests and resump-
tions ; there is no speech, and the whole articulation (if
an emission of the voice accentuated by a motion of the
tongue inay be thus called) is resumed in a clattering of
the tongue thrown against the middle part of the palate :
this clattering repeated ten, twenty, thirty times or more
without interruption, produces a sound equivalent to
that made by drivers to urge their horses.

.Armand cannot eat alone; masticates badly ; digests
imperfectly ; has alternately diarrhoea and constipation ;
can hold neither his saliva, nor urine, nor faeces, which he
generally allows to fall in the morning in from three to six
or ten portions ; he never weeps, blows his nose much,
•does not perspire ; his head yields a nauseating odor ;
his pulse is rapid and full, his respiration strong ; he has
piles (at six years) ! for which a physician prescribed the
monthly application of leeches.

His attention is not absolutely null ; if spoken to
about eating, he listens ; of punishment, he listens ; of the
string taken from him, he hearkens again ; but that is all
of human voice which strikes him. He is attentive to
seek bits of thread, but inattentive to all we would wish
him to do. Besides and beyond his liking for threads,
his appetite and the resti-aint which may be imposed upon
him, he manifests no intellectual faculty. A very in-
stinctive creature, eveiything is subordinate to his unique
liking and to his appetites ; he destroys, eats indefinitely.

APPENDIX. 317

strikes everything he meets, men aiid things. He has an
instinctive taste for water, to put his hands in it, to spill
it, to plunge into it and to sprinkle himself with it ; he
utters shrill and sorrowful cries if he is not taken down-
stairs to wet himself in the rain. Besides, he is disobe-
dient, liiocking, teazing, easily angered, gay, caressing,
without fear, prevision or imitation.

He knows very well that certain things are forbid-
den, which makes him seek them the more anxiously ;
and to attain his aim, he will display infinite resources of
patience, edging himself gradually towards the desired
object (generally some string), whilst his eye, fixed upon
the person he thinks to disobey with impunity, lightens in
a cunning, joyous, and almost Mephistophelic manner. As
far as this order of phenomena is concerned, his memory
is not to be doubted ; his active spontaneity is immense,
although disordered, as we have seen ; and we must grant
him a short-lived instinctive and negative will. What then
does he lack ? He lacks that, the deprivation of which
mainly marks idiocy. Strong, cunning, stubborn, he has
no intellectual and moral will.

His father works metals, p«ncipally gold and copper ;
his mother is robust, but of an exaggerated nervo-san-
guine temperament. She acknowledges no hereditary
disease ; the child was born in a healthy country ; the cir-
cumstances ^attending gestation and lactation presented
nothing remarkable. He has never been ill, and his con-
dition has not varied since four years, excepting such
modifications as are brought about by growth.

I hardly had time to observe this child in the sin-

818 IDIOCY.

gle month I had hirb, under my eye. Nevertheless, I
taught him to eat alone, though not neatly ; to come when
called, instead of going away ; to seize certain objects and
give them to me on command ; to hold dumb-bells in his
hands as long as- my eye held his. In all other respects
— such as walking alone correctly, standing with" feet to-
gether, cessation of mechanical movements — I have ob-
tained nothing, having barely had time to know my sub-
ject. From careful observation, I became convinced that
Armand would only be educable (with the means at com-
mand), if a person were placed constantly and exclu-
sively near him to carry them out. But the family could
not afford this expensive course, and I was forced to
abandon this most interesting case ; one in which idiocy,
without complication or cranial deformity, was so well

marked (Translation from our own French hook

hy Dr. E. 0. Segum.)

As the questions relating to the influence of the size of
the head upon idiocy have received yet no solution, we
merely group them according to certain appearances, to
serve as material for future investigation, and begin with
hydrocephalus. ■«

Obs. XYni. — E. came to Syracuse, in 1862, being eight
years old ; pale to whiteness, she was manifestly affected
with a frontal hydrocephalus. Tall, her forehead thin, and
transparent as Chinese paper made of rice-straw, slightly
yellowedby exposure, was broad, prominent, high, curved
and separated from the vertex and parietals by a deep
and constantly hot depression running across from ear to
ear; her irregular teeth served not .to masticate, but to

APPENDIX. 319

bite her wrist cruelly ; and her glossy fingers, terminated
by narrow nails, were too often tinged with .her own
blood. She was alternately crying and laughing, looking
more like a dement than an idiot. Bat amidst these
desolate symptoms, E. never ceased to appear lady-like.
Even when slobbering or when tearing her flesh, she
would interrupt herself to pick up a down from her
dress, and looked in every respect, but for the direct
symptoms of her infirmity, as a dame of the old regime.
This remark is not indifferent, for it shows that one of the
lowest subjects of idiocy may be so impressed by the
example of an accomplished mother as to imitate it,
though she could not be intellectually educated. Thus
E., after fourteen years spent among children of all sorts
of habits and manners, is yet, in womanhood, the tidy
person she was when a child. As it could* have been
expected from the beginning, if she learned little by the
way of personal teaching, she has gained considerably by
the reflex action of the general training. By the former
she never went farther than the assembling of colors,,
forms, beads, and the like, with some manual imitation
and the accidental emission of words, rarely of short
sentences, involuntarily, or on the spur of a sudden im-
pulse. She learned to follow with pleasure and interest the
movements of the life of which she was a participant. She
has learned also to help herself, to a great extent ; to appre-
ciate the right and wrong in others, and has developed some
affections for her fellows, sometimes delicately expressed.
We have little doubt that her education would have
been more successful were it not that the disease which

320 IDIOCY.

caused her infirmity seemed to never have subsided
entirely to the chronic stage. For even to this day she
has spells of crying, during which she throws her hands,
and sometimes carries ours, back of that monstrous fore-
head, on that burning depression, where there is yet an
active disorder at work. The cause which made -her
idiotic continues its detrin;iental action by preventing the
function of her remaining faculties ; and though much im-
proved in mind and body, she is yet an idiot, suffering
from sub-acute hydrocephalus.

Obs. XIX. — H., from Southern Ohio, is one of a wo-
ful band ; ' children of nearly related parents ; a father
under the mean average of intelligence, and a mother
much lower in the same scale ; all present the same men-
tal infirmity and physical defects, in various degrees.
Their head .is of the bulk attributed to hydrocephaly,
though sometimes pertaining to primitive hypertrophy,
followed by atrophy. The forehead, the coronal suture,
the parietals, are high and broad ; the whole head a tower
of idiocy. One girl is coarse and dirty, swearing more
than speaking ; shedding at eighteen her fifth set of teeth,
all rotten ' soon after emergence ; crouching and chew-
ing her fist, dripping in saliva. After her comes H.,
more pleasant, but stubborn. His education was tried with
very little. success ; and though he can speak and read a
few words, he learns very slowly, very little, and is among
the unpromising. His .two next brothers have learned
something in the public school, though they appear more
or less idiotic to everybody except to their parents. One
of them plays the violin with.a vengeance. Where is the

APPENDIX. 321

father, with a full share of intellect, whose nerves could
stand the spectacle of these children, and of their besotted
mother, gazing in admiration around the fiddler, though
it be their best and happiest moment. Holy Illusion !
spread thy veil between him and those he has wished
perfect.

Obs. XX. — Profound Idiocy — Eydrocephaly — Epi-
lepsy. — Philip d'O., aged six and a half years, tall
and slim, of a lymphatic temperament, of tolerable,
though equable health, has several epileptiform attacks
during the day ; during these, which affect the face and
the epigastrium, he froths at the month, and they are fol-
lowed by paleness and prostration. The cranium is volu-
minous, thrown back, symmetrical; the coronal suture
is low, the superciliary arches much depressed through-
out, the temporal arch is very high, angular, and long ;
the frontal eminences are prominent on each side, of a
deep vertical depression starting from the nose. The
lambdoid suture is elongated, the tuberosity of the occi-
put narrow and projecting. The face is much smaller
than the cranium ; the eyes are dull and small, the linea-
ments well proportioned relatively, except the mouth,
which is large and hanging ; the neck is notably long and
narrow (a circumstance which I have never failed to ob-
serve in cases of congenital epilepsy, and which I have
seen nowhere mentioned). The posture of the head is in-
clined to the left, that of the body and the members is
that of struggling and agitated weakness. With the
exception of the thickness of the lips, young Philip's
mouth is well conformed ; the organs of generation, the

322 IDIOCY.

thorax, the spinal column, the abdomen, present no
anomalies.

If physical force is absent in this child, his need of
agitation and displacement is constant. His nervous
apparatuses seem all to participate in the disorder which
produces exteriorly the manifestations .which the faipily
are obliged to conceal. No irritating agent seems capable
of educating this irritability. The sensitive nerves, as the
motor, are inactive to an incredible degree. Always
moving, hopping, jumping, rolling on the ground, climb-
ing up on to the back of chairs, from which he slides like
a squirrel, Philip bites himself, strikes his head mechan-
ically, strikes the furniture spasmodically, and gives him-
self up to all possible sorts of motile disorders. Alone,
he skips while walking, hardly puts his foot on the ground,
stumbles on the floor, falls upon his hands, rises quickly
and begins once again ; if an arm is used to assist him,
he swings on it and almost immediately escapes, or
sinks to the ground uttering cries ; immobility is un-
known to him ; in bed, before sleeping, he swings himself,
sings and cries. Although his feet hardly rest on the
ground, this contact seems painful to him ; but the excita-
tions which result from it, do not deserve the names of
walk, run, jump, etc. ; it is a kind of instinctive action
which has no name. Articular flexion is easy but invol-
untary, so that the prehension of bodies is quick and
instinctive ; Philip takes hold, lets go, rejects, but he does
not receive with his hands, which have never been of
any use to him, save to climb, to search, his pareats' pockets

APPENDIX. 823

and to seize a glass, plunge his hands into a dish, etc.,
etc.

Tactile sensibility seems concentrated to the soles of
the feet, and is obtuse everywhere else; the taste is
marked for succulent, sweet, and aromatic substances ; for
the strongest liquors, rum, kirschenwasser, etc. The
smell only perceives the strongest odors ; and does that
not by inspiration through the nares, but by»buccal
inspiration ; Philip swallows odors, and does not breathe
them ; thus his father regales him with tobacco-smoke,
after which he jumps, to catch it with his mouth before
its final dispersion.

The apparatus of hearing is normal, but the function is
rarely voluntary; the look evades all direction; unfixed,
vague, and erratic alternately, it is lost upon an undefin-
able point, or runs over objects with a rapidity which is
the more surprising, because it does not prevent acciden-
tal vision; but the look, properly so called, does not
exist. The voice is a cry analogous to that of carnivorous
animals, a little modified by a tone of suffering ; it is
repeate/i twice, three or four times at the farthest, it
ceases, or re-commences if the internal cause of the cry
continues; the speech is limited to the noise Pa-Pa-Pa
repeated three or four times, and which, in moments of
casual attention, seems to express all that we would wish
him to say. The organs of generation are the seat of a
mechanical irritation for which the nurse is blamed. The
appetite is but little developed, but the child is constantly
eating candy, so that his thirst is great ; he chews earth,
sand, leaves ; gnaws the bark of cord-wood which he may

324 IDIOCY.

come across, rolling himself on the ground, not in seizures
of epilepsy, but in his extravagant paroxysms of rage. He
eats everything, even soup, with his hand ; does not mas-
ticate meat, which it is necessary to hash up with bread,
and which is generally modified by the art of good
cookery ; he rejects the crust of bread, swallows the soft
part cut into cubes, without chewing it^as well as potatoes,
which he prefers to other vegetables ; he digests badly,
has frequent diarrhosas, passes his faeces and urine invo-
luntarily day and night, slobbers constantly, perspires
upon the eyelids, the nose, and the upper lip ; his head
emitB a penetrating nauseating odor which vanquishes
scents and defies cleanliness.

The sleep is pretty good, but always broken by periods
of wakefulness, which the child employs in satisfying his
fatal monomania ; the pulse varies frequently and under-
goes several changes of rhythm during the day ; respira-
tion is normal.

Philip manifests no attention nor comparison, etc.,
except when he meets with objects he cares for; speech
can but seldom make him turn his head ; but music ! if
he cries, music will silence him ; if he has one of his epi-
leptiform attacks, music will overcome them gently ; if
he hears a tune, he at once begins to hum it, and will
repeat it until another shall have been sung to him. It
seemed to me that he did not lack the memory of place
and of things which pleased him, but at first I dis-^
covered only, insignificant manifestations of this apti-
tude. Thus after several months of care he was taken
into the country, when I saw him, nimbly escaping

APPENDIX. 325

from the carriage, lose himself in the intricate walks of an
English garden, and soon we found him quietly seated
upon the bifurcation of a venerable apple-tree, which his
nurse told me was his favorite. haunt: I could no longer
doubt that he had, at least, the memory of locality.

He had so little foresight that the windows and ban-
nisters were barred at home, and that he could not have
remained a moment alone without meeting with an acci^
dent. He was quite fond of petting, though not caress-
ing ; indifferent to everything except sweetmeats and
music ; he did not play, and imitated nothing ; without
any moral sense, no applicable will dawned on him ; and
even the negative will did not appear until some time
after his education was commenced, true progress upon
the purely mechanical violence with which he escaped all
direction ; idiot he was truly, in the full meaning of the
word.

Shall we say that this child ought to have been edu-
cated according to the method of Eollin ? And whyjiot?
Seeing that I was using months, wearing out my strength
and my health in immobilizing the infant-machine, and to
make him perform some regular and willed movements,
the parents went to their physician {risunv teneatis) and
complained that nothing was being done. I was obliged
to give some explanation to the doctor and to remonstrate
with the family in order to continue to have the right of
saving the child. However, as I had foreseen, the regu-
larization of movements immediately created attention
and rendered sensorial perceptions possible. The nomi-
nation of objects was more difficult ; wnen I named an

326 IDIOCY.

object, he did not always give it to me ; if I demanded
two, he did not give them, and appeared no longer to
understand. Philip read with his eyes upon cards (for
he did not yet speak), and gave me any object whose
written name I showed him, but not two ; in order to
succeed in this latter exercise, I found it necessary to ask
him for two things having some relation one to the other,
such as p&n and ink-stcmd, pa^er a.jxA pencil, gcurter and
stockmg ; I then sought objects having more distant men-
tal relation, such as a hnife and a fork, a ncupJcin and a
plate I then objects with contrasting qualities, as a chair
and an arm-chair, a iottle and a decanter, a shoe and a
slipp&r, a vest and a coat, etc., etc. From this ground-
work we proceeded to the study of numbers. Speech
occupied us about two years ; for example, I find in my
notes that in fifteen months Philip spoke pretty well, but
when it is commanded him he will not speak.

In fact, the great difficulty was, th.&\, would not. I
had^ut short all manifestations of motor disorders, I had
desired he should have regular movements ; he had them ;
I had regiilarized this class of phenomena so that, from the
sixth month of the training, the epilepsy had not returned ;
I had wished to fix the look, and subsequently the attention,
and consequently all the practical results of this success,
reading, drawing, writing, etc., and all the usual and posi-
tive knowledge, had followed ; but Philip had need of the
impulsion of another will to produce all the manifesta-
tions of his faculties and aptitudes, so new in him, that
they did not as yet perform their functions voluntarily or
by habit. Whdl was to be done to make the child

' APPENDIX, 327

will f Until this time I had hesitated, wishing and not
wishing, halting between the puerilities or the obstacles
which were opposed to me, and the logic of my method
which urged me on irresistibly. I decided not to act, for
a child, sometimes unhappily for him, belongs to his
family, and nothing is to be undertaken but what it con-
sents to most explicitly ; but to tell the parents what I
thought necessary to be done. Eight years ago* I ex-
pressed myself, in an analogous position, in the following
terms :

" That which we should endeavor to develop in the phase
of education we are now entering, is will, the spontaneity
which is rendered into acts by initiatvoe. It is neces-
sary that A. should take the initiative. In order to ac-
complish this, the education which has so far been revealed
under the form of commamd, should clothe itself with that
of observation, passive attitude which shall rarely be inter-
rupted by an evident direction or an imperceptible autho-
rity.

" In this new period all that which went forward to meet
the necessities and wishes of the child, should be kept afar
off, forming, as it were, a circle about him. He, in the
centre, shall never be able to reach the necessary circum-
ference, but by the spontaneous radiation of his will
towards the encircling objects he desires.

"•This negative provocation to the will must doubtless be
interrupted by physical and intellectual occupations, such

* "R^sum^ de oe que nous avous fait, Bsquirol et Seguin." Paris, 1838,
pp. 13, 13.

328 IDIOCY.

as gymnastics^ reading, writing, pronunciation, nomina-
tion, and the various exercises of o^-dinary memory ; but
these labors (wherein the master's will is to be, as before,
actively manifested) shall hold but the second rank, and
shall more especially serve as recreation from more labo-
rious inaction.

■

" Now, therefore, more than ever, all deleterious influ-
ences of pity, of assistance, of service, should be with-
drawn from him. Do not say to a sick person that he is
in extremis / to a child that he is weak ; he will not dare
to walk ; that he cannot do everything like everybody ;
he will never do anything. At the master's side is wanted
not a mawkish and indulgent nurse, but a strong man,
whose manner, gesture, voice, abound in energy and im-
pregnate with it the being to whom we wish to give self-
reliance ; a man who knows how to obey like a soldier ; a
calm and disciplined man ; a living sentinel, who shall
act positively or passively, just as he may have been

ordered Do not say that we ought to wait still

awhile ; we have already waited too long If you

do not follow this advice, it shall remain as the proof un-
happily fatal, of what you might have done for your son and
what you have not done ; choose, etc " Unfortu-
nately, Esquirol and I were right, as since I have had
need to insist, in similar terms, upon the severity of the
moral treatment for Philip. If we except certain acroba-
tic exercises in which he excels in the gymnasium, exer-
cises which bear a sad resemblance to the apish habits I
had divested him of with such pains, this youth has
remained precisely at the point I left him. I do not im-

APPENDIX. 329

piign' the zeal of his tutor, who has fruitlessly employed
so many valuable years with him ; no one can do him
better justice than I ; but in the position he has accepted,
he can be, he is, in fact, but a means without results, a
cause without effect. As to his pupil, he is a poor child
sacrificed to stupidity, as others are to satisfaction of the
vilest passions. It has been said of two of the children
here described, that their only progress consisted in hav-
ing become from idiot, imbecile. In the common sense in
which these two terms have been applied, no greater
praise of my method could be^made ; for, if in two years I
have brought an idiot to the point of reading, writing,
cyphering, speaking and all that, so tolerably that after two
years of my efforts the qualification of imbecile might be
given to the child, what might I not have done in the
numerous years which followed, and during which, with
or without another method, there was not. an iota of pro-
gress ? In truth, the arrest of development was instanta-
neous, and such that one might imagine God had said :
Justice shall not permit the accomplishment of this begin-
ning.

Obs. XXI — Profound Idioay — Hydrocephaly — Cho-
rea. — Leopold N., aged nine years, of a scrofulous tem-
perament and of delicate health, can barely see with one
eye, and not at all out of the other, which is the seat of
scrofulous conjunctivitis. The cranium is elongated, the
temporal ridge light and expanded, the frontal eminences
more prominent than the anterior base of the cranium,
whose sides are symmetrical. This is not true of the face,

which is small relatively to the skull, and which has been

21

330 IDIOCY.

sadly furrowed by convulsions. The parts on the right
of the nares, the lips, the tongue, and the corner of the
eye especially, have retained the contractures consequent
upon this scourge of infants ; and the limbs of the right
side, especially the hand, partake of this retraction,
which assumes the aspect of a hemiplegia ; the body is
otherwise well proportioned. The habit of the body is that
of a chpreic person. The organs of voice are not merely
vitiated in consequence of the contracture of the tongue
and lips, but the teeth are bad and irregular ; the roof of
the palate is too high in the centre, and, as it were, made
into a deep gully; the lips always apart and closing
badly, even when forced together, allow an abundant
saliva to escape constantly. The organs of generation are
precocious, the sternum is prominent, the chest approxi-
mating the shape called pigeon-chested ; the vertebral
column is weak, deviating somewhat anteriorly and to
the left in the dorsal region; the abdomen is large, not
hard, but tympanitic.

Leopold is very active, but feeble, and he can do
naught but stamp and be agitated without aim. This
visible disorder of the nervous system is fearful in him ;
he weeps, cries, laughs, sings, almost always without
motive; the slightest cause augments his irritability,
which is excited to the highest point by odors, electricity,
and even cold (rare phenomenon which is explained by
the diseased delicacy of the touch) ; and he prefers the
warmest places, except in stormy weather, when he suf-
fers singularly. Is this action of cold due to the chorea ?
I am inclined to think so, since no idiot is thus ajBfected

APPENDIX. 331

by it, notwithstanding what has been said. If some pre-
fer the heat of the stove to the acute cold of winter, it is
a matter of taste in them, taste as obscure as is in them
tactile sensibility, and which does not prove that cold is
painful to them : for practice has proven to me the con-
trary in all cases, except this one complicated with chorea ;
and which consequently cannot be counted an exception
to the rule.

It is probable that the nervous centres and ramifica-
tions in Leopold, excepting those of sensibility, are seri-
ously affected ; at any rate, all physiological manifesta-
tions corresponding to these apparatuses are disordered
or null. General sensibility set aside, we in fact find the
disorders of' locomotion patent, and chiefly so on one side
of the body ; evident contractures on the right ; an ema-
ciated muscular apparatus ; sphincters without irritability,
with almost no voluntary action ; automatic movements,
principally suction and biting ; spasmodic motions of the
fingers, hands, and arms; and all movements which
should be coordinated, disordered.

Thus the jerky walk is accompanied by numerous
falls ; ascent is impossible as well as descent, the jump,
and the run ; the difficulty of seizing with the hand is
extreme ; what the hand has succeeded in grasping
it allows to fall the next instant, while it cannot be volun-
tarily opened to let go; and this incapacity is much
more marked on the right than on the left side. If he
wished to eat, the spoon, often filled, would drop from
his hands or strike his eyes, his cheek, or his nose before
getting into his mouth ; in fact he could not be safely

332 IDIOCY.

trusted with knife or fork. He ate from others' hands
with diabolical grimaces ; he in vain tried to put on his
stockings ; to put his cap upon his head was to him so
difficult an operation that it often lasted four or five
minutes, and that always awkwardly placed, it soon fell.

The tact was extremely and abnormally sensitive ; the
smell nearly null, the taste without preference, and even
a little depraved ; audition unequal, and at times more
difficult than at othei'S ; the quality of the look little ap-
preciable through the albugo, which had destroyed the
sight of the right eye and considerably dimmed that of
the left ; the organs of generation rather precocious and
wilted by self-abuse ; the voice reduced to a few cries,
the speech absent, if not willingly, at least effectively ;
assimilative functions rather active, digestion bad, rather
on account of voracity than because of any organic dis-
ease ; the dejections were involuntary, the tears absent,
the nasal and buccal mucus abundant, perspiration insen-
sible, and sweating unknown ; the sebaceous secretion
fetid, the sleep agitated, the pulse quick and irregular,
respiration jerky. Such was at nine years the physio-
logical aspect of Leopold N., who could not walk, and at
seven could not stand.

His intellectual state was but little more satisfactory.
His sensorial perception, partly prevented by the state of
the visual organs, had brought his mind but few subjects
of comparison, of judgment, of reflection, etc. If he
was not entirely unintelligent, he only thought of
seeking alimentary objects and some playthings, which
he generally held in his mouth. He knew nothing of let-

APPENDIX. 333

ters, reading, drawing, or arithmetic, etc. He loved
music, sang involuntarily, humming and swinging his
head to and fro in bed. He had memory of things and
persons, and gave signs of instinctive foresight in hiding
that which he could not instantly eat, in order to take it
up soon afterwards.

Without having the instinct of personal preservation
nor that of order, destructive, aggressive without wicked-
ness, loving to search garbage and to find in it some foul
morsel, Leopold was easily angered, disobedient, jealous,
affectionate, gay, and especially rejoicing over any ridi- •
cule which assailed his comrades ; courageous, thought-
less, full of vanity, but rather diffident, and much of an
imitator. Relatively to his acts he understood right and
wrong very clearly, but he would do nothing ; and with-
out lacking spontaneity, he only used it to satisfy his
negative instincts of resistance and his positive instincts of
assimilation. Leopold had no other intimacy with his
comrades than with reference to the vice above men-
tioned.

Born of a father addicted to drink, and of a very
beautiful and healthy mother, he was the last of six chil-
dren. The five others, four of whom were girls, present
a perfect picture of health and strength. He was born in
a butcher-shop, and not he alone of all my pupils. "What-
ever may have been the influence of these circumstances
prior to confinement, no blame is attached to the nurse,
and nevertheless convulsions occurred at six months;
then they were terrible, once, twice, three times ; then
they diminished until the age of three, when symptoms

334 IDIOCY.

of chorea became apparent. .Tainted with scrofula, he
has eked out a miserable life until seven years old ;
always carried or lying, he lived like ,a paralytic. His
condition, then, had improved from one to three and from
seven to nine years, without his ceasing, for all that,
being idiotic and choreic.

Thus I judged Leopold, and it was upon the basis of the
diagnosis of profound idiocy, affecting principally the
motor and perceptive apparatuses, that I rested the treat-
ment. Leaving aside the psychological question (which,
I repeat, has occupied a great deal too much attention),
I busied myself, during several months, only vdth the
education of the motor functions. What mattered it that
this unfortunate child should read, so long as he could
not hold his spoon ! "What did even the education of the
perceptive functions, the hearing, the sight, etc., amount
to, so long as movements could not be regularized nor
immobility attained ? It is to be seen, in this case as in
many others, that progress does not amount to much, or
is impossible, if it be not produced in the order indicated
by the physiological disorders : in Leopold this way was
all traced by the symptoms. Without concerning myself
about the alphabet, fables, etc., I made him mount, or
rather I hoisted him high, in front of a ladder ; I
placed his feet upon the first round, his hands upon the
fifth, and I descended, still holding on to his gymnastic belt
for fear of accident ; I had well judged : after a sort of
hesitation of the body, produced, in part, by the fear of
falling, in part by the impulse which agitates choreic
persons, his legs bent under him, and I received the child

APPENDIX. • 335

in my arms ; no other harm was done except a little
fright. We began again ; the fear of falling, for I
affected to hold him less and less every day, gave him a
strength of resistance of which I should not have thought
him capable ; and as the chorea reappeared during this
exercise in proportion as the child had less fear, I occasion-
ally increased the distance to the soil by a round, in order
to keep up this salutary anxiety. In fact, this anxious pre-
occupation was so effective that I did not long delay in
putting him behind the ladder. There, indeed, we had,
he and I, to submit to severe trials. The hands of poor
Leopold had until then held nothing, and consequently
carried nothing : they were now obliged to hold a round
of the ladder, and to support his own weight. It is true
that I helped him somewhat at first, because my hands,
placed over his for fear of accident, supported everything,
and also because I was in the habit of lightening his
burden by often placing his feet upon the lower round of
the ladder. It is true that his feet, incapable of volun-
tary contraction, soon slid off, and then on his part came
cries, on mine new efforts, but it must be done. This last
word was everything, and as soon as Leopold understood
it, I no longer heard cries of anger ; he only gave utter-
ance to those of fatigue or pain, and these I always lis-
tened to, so far as the proposed aim of our efforts allowed.
Notwithstanding some yielding on this point, but without
weakness, I at last brought him to stand alone and with-
out support behind the ladder, seizing a round, holding
up his own weight, he who two months before could nei-
ther stand nor carry anything ; that was something.

386 iDiocr.

But one must learn to let go, voluntarily, of a thing
which has been seized, and Leopold let nothing go except
accidentally. What was to be done ? The same ladder,
the same exercises, will serve our purpose. Placing him
behind the ladder, I place my hands again upon his and
await that he should tire. At the first expression of
fatigue I allow him to descend, and liberating one of his
hands, the left, from under my own, I invite him to put
it upon the next lower round ; he has understood, but
does not comply, and I wait. If he cries too painfully, I
detach myself the end of the fingers of his left hand from
the round, and it drops down to the next. It may be
asked why this, was not done at first. The answer is easy,
and I give it the more readily as it applies not merely to
this exercise, but to all those that enter into the treat-
ment of idiots. In everything and everywhere we must
require of the child the greatest possible amount of syn-
ergy ; for, if in the first exercises we ask less of the child
than he can give, the minimum of activity will always be
evoked, and yet he will always fancy that he is doing too
much ; besides, it is much easier, after having been very
exacting, to become less so than the reverse. In order to
be kind and indulgent without danger, show yourself, at
first, severe and rude, when necessary ; and thus always ;
to obtain B, demand B -H D. Thus, in respect both to
morality and to the progression of exercises, it martters as
much not to require too little, as to demand exactly the
thing which it is necessary to obtain. What I here wished
to obtain, was that the child should voluntarily let go of
one round to take hold of a second ; what I did not ob-

. APPENDIX. 337

tain was, that the nerves should act upon the entire length
of the hand ; but what cared I ? Morally, I was certain
of having been obeyed as completely as possible ; physi-
cally, I had obtained from a portion of an organ the
function which I had excited in the whole, for want of
knowing where the incapacity of voluntary contracti-
bility might cease ; in reality I had obtained more than I
had asked, for I thereby possessed a more precise know-
ledge of my subject.

This knowledge enabled me to improve our special
gymnastics with reference to two points which had, later,
some influence. I deduced from it that the right hand
evaded, more than the left, voluntary direction ; and I
began by detaching from the round the two distal pha-
langes of the right hand (which I did not do for the left) ;
then I allowed this latter to descend last for some time,
to spare the weaker right a momentarily, useless, and
painful shock. At least a year passed ere he was able to
ascend behind the ladder without having his hands and
feet directed in their movements of ascension ; but we
should not be surprised at that. In descending, the ten-
sion which was exerted upon the whole length of the
muscles did not allow the choreic movements to manifest
themselves, and the commanded movements having their
entire action from above, downward, the members were
enabled to descend from one round to another without
being agitated and diverted from their aim in this rapid
exercise ; whereas to ascend it was not thus. In order to
rise from one round to another, the hands and feet are
required to perform a movement from below upwards ; an

338 ■ IDIOCY. '

effort which is slower, more complicated than the simple
flexion required for a simple motion from above down-
wards. So that it would not have been suflScient to have
directed for a long time his hand from below upwards as
we have done to teach him to climb behind the ladder.
In the long intervals which were left us by these fatiguing
gymnastics, the child was drilled with tlie balancing-pole,
with dumb-bells carried for hours, then carried above the
head ; and in transporting with the hands, the arms, or the
back, bricks, stones, etc. During this time the walk was
being regularized, falls became rarer, Leopold no longer
went up-stairs on all-fours, and slid down ; he took hold
of the bannisters and held on for dear life ; but then there
was a cake waiting for him on the second floor ; soup was
served on the first, or nuts were to be had in the garret ;
dainties had been, put in the proper place.

Care was, however, taken at first to make him wish a
long time for these ; then to remove to a distance the object
of his desires ; then to substitute quality for quantity ; and
at last to give him only trifling rewards for the really
meritorious pains which he took to obtain them.

I shall not give greater details about this child. I
shall only direct attention to the fact that Leopold, who
once allowed his cup to fall, now holds a mattock very
well, and began to use it* quite well as soon as he was
able to stand behind the ladder ; that he masticated bet-
ter__a8 soon as he was given hard bread ; that he held with
his lips a heavy object better than a light one ; that he
saw or rather looked with more attention at a small,
than at a large picture; and that he preferred such

appendix;. 839

exercises as required activity, to those which caused
immobility.

After three years of care, he spoke well enough to be
understood ; but he still, while speaking, made rather ugly
faces. Besides, he read, wrote in large letters upon a
black-board all that was required of him; he copied a
drawing with skill ; he cyphered, was fond of money,
liking to take possession of things which he foresaw/might
be of advantage to him; he was regular in his walk,
ascending and descending with the slightest support (not
able to jump), but otherwise free to direct his hands and
feet where and when he wills; he was therefore con-
sidered as fit to learn a trade at twelve years ; it is this
which removed him so that I could not longer give him
my personal attention. All that I know of him, is that
the remains of chorea which were left at our separation,
have not increased, and that all his progress has been
confirmed, although he ceased to receive any special
cares. — {Trcmslated as. above.)

' Obs. XXII.— The largest puffing up of the cranium by
effusion we know is that presented by Miss Maria T., of
this city, now seventeen years old. Her head is thirty-
seven inches in the largest circumference at its summit,
and twenty-seven and a half over the vertex from one
foramen auditorium to another. From the same points
around the base of the forehead measures only thirteen
inches, subsidence to be expected, but so extreme in her
that it strikes one with awe. Lower, the body is but a
mere skeleton, whose legs are for ever crossed at the
thighs ; if straightened, they retake slowly their twisted

340 IDIOCY.

position ; the feet thus are transposed from right to left ;
protruding, strongly arched, like dolls' feet. Her arms
and hands could not be likened, for size and shape, to
anything else better than to twin wooden Swiss forks ;
they move as slow as leeches, but sure, to the ob-
ject of their aim of which the fingers take hold by
crossing each other, as the elongated claws of a prisoner-
bird do when seizing a tiny wire.

Her condition began to show itself after vaccination ;
but the mother acknowledges great anxiety during preg-
nancy. Other children all right.

Miss T. never assumed the sitting or standing posture.
Her animal functions have always been very good ; and
she uses by preference animal food. She began to speak
when five years old. Her senses have always been acute,
but she lost her sight five years ago. In 1865 she had
spasms for the first time ; since, she has grown weaker,
and entered already in her period of decay. Though her
brain was, we may say, drowned in an ocean of hetero-
geneous fluid, it kept up active communication with the
world. She was cheerful, sung and talked until lately ;
used playthings as ordinary children do ; liked to see
bright objects waving before her eyes when she could see,
and even now in caecity she amuses herself by making
papers rustle and move before her absent vision, mutter-
ing yet, though indistinctly, " Hurrah for the colors !
Hurrah for the flag," touching reminiscences of popular
festivities which impressed her at an earlier period. Her
gentle disposition, her afiections and family feelings, tes-
tify of the angel spirit which ministered to her and

APPENDIX. 841

brought to her couch everything which could feed the
body and the soul.

"We plead guilty of a kind of cowardice in suppressing,
for social considerations, the name of the mother who,
for seventeten years, has devoted herself exclusively to
the happiness of her strange but loving child ; who seems
to be born to show what a mother can do. But we are car-
ried by our studies into another sphere. We cannot avoid
thinking that Miss T. is born also to permit us to study
the ultimate organic alterations through which intellec-
tual functions can take place ; and that more honor would
be paid to her memory by a scrupulous study of her
organism after death by men like 'our Dalton, Draper,
Brown-Sequard, and the preservation of her remains in
the shrines of Science, than by giving her bod;^ to be
eaten by maggots as if it was the insignificant carcass of
a king or a cobbler.

Obs. XXni. — In apposition to these large-headed chil-
dren, we naturally enough present the small-headed ones
affected with microcephaly. None of them, that we
know of, have been more accurately represented than the
" Aztec children " are, by Dr. J. C. Dalton, in his Trea-
tise on Physiology : " They were boy and girl, aged
respectively about seven and five years. The boy was two
feet nine and three-quarter inches high, and weighed a little
over twenty pounds ; the girl was two feet five and one-
half inches high, and weighed seventeen pounds. Their
bodies were tolerably well proportioned, but the cranial
cavities were extremely small. The antero-posterior dia-
meter of the boy's head was only four and a half inches,

342 IDIOCY,

the transverse diameter less than four inches. The antero-
posterior diameter of the girl's head was four and one-
third inches, the transverse diameter only three and three-
quarter inches.

" The habits of these children, so far as regards feeding
and taking care of themselves, are those of children two
or three years of age. They were incapable of learning
to talk, and could only repeat a few isolated words. Not-
withstanding, however, the extremely limited range of
their intellectual powers, these children were remarkably
vivacious and excitable. While awake, they were in
almost constant motion, and any new object or toy pre-
sented to them, immediately attracted their attention, and
evidently awakened a lively curiosity. They were accord-
ingly easily influenced by proper management, and under-
stood readily the meaning of those who addressed them,
so far as this meaning could be conveyed by gesticulation
and the tone of the voice. Their expression and general
appearance, though decidedly idiotic, were not at all dis-
agreeable or repulsive ; and they were much less trouble-
some to the persons who had them in charge than is often
the case with idiots possessing larger cerebral develop-
ment."

This description of the learned Professor of Physiology
of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York,
portrays the Aztecs with a masterly fidelity, as they were
exhibited in this city. "We had the opportunity of see-
ing them in 1862, when first shown in Cleveland, Ohio,
when they had not yet been submitted to a thorough sys-
tem of training and feeding for the stage. Then, though

APPENDIX 343

they could not yet speak a single word, they gave evi-
dence of being capable of a certain degree of education.
It was our opinion at that time that their habits could
have been made nearly social, and their senses adapted to
the reception of more intellectual phenomena, though
without any chance of restoring the qualities of the will
which create independence. We considered them ca-
pable of being elevated from the level of the monkey
to that of obedient, sensible, and happy children. This
prospect frankly laid out, did not seem to please their
keeper, either because he did not believe it possible, or
because he feared it would have diminished the chances
of his success. For our part, we thought that the Aztecs
speaking, drawing, writing, counting, etc., with the heads
analogous to those of some of the Simian tribe, would
havfe presented^ a more philosophical spectacle to the
thinker, and a better teiaching to all of us, than the sorry
and silly things they were made to remain.

Obs. XXIY. — Profowndj Idiotyy — Cwcular Micro-
cephaly — Epilepsy. — Charles de V., aged five years, of
a scrofulous diathesis, of equable health, only interrupted
by frequent paroxysms of epilepsy. His cranium, large
at its medium base, is exceedingly conical ; the face re-
presenting precisely the same shape reversed ; and this
relative symmetry of the face and skull is the more re-
markable, as it is not marred by any inequality from
side to side. The general habit is that of prostration, only
interrupted by twitchings of the arms and contractions of
the face and epileptiform seizures. The organs of speech
are thickened by the abundant saliva which pours out.

344 IDIOCY.

• •

the tongue frequently hangs out of the mouth ; of the first
set of teeth only seven are grown ; the chest and the loins
are well conformed externally, but do not support them-
selves ; the abdomen is large and hard.

Charles has naught but an automatic activity ; usually
he cries ; he cries if he is touched, he cries if he is spoken
to when he eats ; and when he hears singing, he stops for
a moment; the approach of a storm increases much his
paroxysm and his cries. JSTo distinction can be made as
to the incapacity and the excess of sensibility of both halves
of the body ; muscular movements are as much limited on
one side as on the other ; coordinated and voluntary move-
ments are wanting ; of all positions he only retains that on
the bed, for standing he would fall without mechanical
support, so that he no more walks than he seizes, holds,
flings, receives anything with his hands. The only thing
that he does, is to plunge his index and thumb into his
mouth and .to bite them while ciying, and to pass the back
of his hand over his lips and on his tongue while he mur-
murs ou, ou, ou, a, ou, ou, ou, ou, a, etc., to express his satis-
faction, which generally occurs after dinner.

Charles, so easily impressed by the touch, seems not
to hear, look, taste or smell ; however, it must be by aid
of the smell that he distinguishes food, for at its appi'oach,
without looking, he opens his mouth.

He does not masticate ; digests badly ; is careless ; sali-
vates constantly ; does not blow his nose, weep, nor per-
spire ; his head gives out a fetid odor. His sleep is sound ;
generally it ends in the morning in an epileptic attack,

APPENDIX. 345

the pxilse is variable and more hard than frequent; the
respiration is oppressed.

Excepting the attention he gives to his feeding (and I
am still at a loss to know by what sensorial acts he pro-
vides for it), Charles presents not a trace of intellectual
operations. The frequent need of food only can force him
to be attentive to what is going on around him

Idiot, in the full meaning of the term ; but much more
than idiot, since epilepsy prostrates him ten to twenty
times a day ; I have never seen, even in the hospices, a
subject offering a more complete type of these two infirmi-
ties. I have never known his family, nor the possible
causes of his condition, and Charles remained too short a
time in Paris for me to attempt his improvement. During
his short stay I had only time to study him, and a favor-
able prognosis has not resulted from such study ; never-
tlieless, it would have been necessary to have tried to
treat him at least one year, to affirm that he vrasmeurable,
or that at least his condition could not be ameliorated.

Obs. XXY. — Profound Idiocy — Circular Microce-
phaly — Wot complicated. — Oecile de Q-., fifteen years of
age, of a sanguine temperament, enjoying fair health,
subject to phlegmasise of the respiratory mucous mem-
brane, having menstrual suppressions for months at a
time, highly affected with strabismus and myopia. Her
cranium, which at its largest circumference does not
measure more than forty centimetres (15*Y inches), is
nearly circular at its base and up to the sincipital summit,
which is high, and to which all the bones rapidly centre,

obliterating all the normal prominences of the anterior

22

346 IDIOCY.

and lateral lobes, and of the cerebellum ; in other respects
it is symmetrical. The face, less symmetrical and little
harmonious, offers the aspect which results from the union
of a very low forehead, of wild and some^^hat strabismic
eyes, of thick lips widely open and hanging, which are
rendered prominent by their ruby color and their size in
the midst of a colored profile, whose details are animated
by no expression. The body and members are well
formed, are distinguished by central rigidity and by
laxity of the extremities. The waist sags, the head is
bent, the arms hang, the debilitated and abnormally taper ;
fingers are often in her mouth or placed on the knees.
The posture is very lax and inactive. The organs of
speech, thick, clumsy, bathed in saliva, are motionless ; the
lips are of a rigid softness, the teeth are irregular, the
superior prominent, the tongue is heavj'-, the velum pajlati
low, the pharyngeal hiatus narrow and limited by large
tonsils and a long uvula.

Cecile lives in almost total inaction, and attempts
nothing ; her nervous irritability, usually latent, is pro-
duced by the most futile and insignificant causes. The
least restraint, vexation, want of success in that which she
has undertaken by order, heat, electricity, the north wind
in dry weather, develops in her an abnormal nervous
state, tears, cries, spasmodic movements, gnawing, gritting
of teeth, an excess of saliva, etc. All the nervous centres
do not seem affected ; but the cerebral mass must, because
of the circular compression it experiences, be in abnormal
physiological conditions.

In fact, general sensibility is quite acute and often

APPENDIX. 347

sickly, and motility is here imperfect, there impossible.
Otherwise, no difference in the sensibility and irritability
of the two sides of the body is to be observed, nor mus-
cular contractions or mechanical movements, except
gnawing. Voluntary movements are all general, clumsily
executed, incomplete, and restrained ; and more, no single
partial, willed movement of the extremities can be pointed
out which is skilfully and usefully done. The articular
flexions are incomplete and embarrassed. Cecile could
not bend her knees nor rise without using her hands, but
she walks badly alone in the room ; and in the street,
assisted with one arm, the swinging of her body is equally
manifest. She stands up with difficulty, her legs apart in
an undecided, unfixed, and painful position, which she
hastens to abandon ; seated, she sags down, with her head
bent, twirling with her fingers her apron or her dress ;
lying, she rolls her head both before and after sleep, which
is often agitated ; she sleeps drawn up in a heap. Her
lax hands take well and receive badly, leave go, and do
not fling an object; they are unskilful at all useful doings,
even to put on her stockings, to caj-ry a chair, etc. The
tact is sickly and impatient, the smell craving for odors,
the taste but little developed, audition normal, the look
vague and diffused. The voice is quite strong, but its
emissions are generally low, embarrassed, very short ; the
speech is limited to the two labials ;pa, ma, which are, in
reality, produced by the apposition of the upper lip with
the inferior teeth, as if they were labio-dentals — wa for
example ; these emissions of articulation are well produced
by twos, but so distinct that there is between them the

348 iDiocT.

rest indicated in reading by a period. The other sylla-
bles are only attempted, but however nnintelligiblo they
may be, they at least prove that Oecile has the sentiment
of the function which she tries to accomplish ; although it
be always contrary to her wishes, or through outside inci-
tations, that she determines to make these poor attempts.

This young person has a tolerable appetite without
anomaly, but she satisfies it dirtily and unskilfully ; she
masticates badly, is constipated, is clean both day and
night, salivates constantly, but more abundantly when
iinder the influence of an emotion; she perspires but
little, and that almost exclusively on the hands ; her head
has a peculiar odor, her pulse is small and irregular, her
respiration short.

Cecile is susceptible to a little attention and compa-
rison, especially towards objects of toilet, which please
her ; but she has as yet been able to apply her faculties
to nothing intellectual ; for the five or six letters, which
she knows since ^bout three years, she does not unite
into syllables, and she has never been able to recognise
more, notwithstanding all the efi^orts that have been
made to teach her the others. "Writing, drawing, cipher-
ing, forms, colors, dimension, money, time, etc., are un-
known to her. She is fond of music, and tries to sing ;
she has the memory of time and place ; she runs into no
dangers, has no instinct but that of possession, vaguely
expressed for want of intelligence ; consequently she pre-
serves and does not like to destroy things.

She would rather be more rebellious than disobedient,
if a severe education had not always controlled her ; alter-

APPENDIX. 349

nately she is rancorous and caressing ; knowing that she
does wrong, she persists in it angrily, and ends by losing
all self-control. Good, sympathetic, gay, usually timid,
sometimes playful, rather imitative, she had some desires
of regular actions, which almost immediately died out in
her inattention and in her sentiment of incapacity.
Without abnormal instinctive spontaneities, she will not
will firmly (stubbornness), up to an excess of violence
which is called rage, and then she beats persons and
things. Her father and mother are healthy, but there is
a disease in the family which I have before spoken of.
The excellent care with which she has been surrounded
alone prevented her being an idiot isolated to the last
degree ; and I much regret not being able to name a
father, a mother especially, who have appreciated that the
noblest task was to morally incubate the poor child which
had been given them so imperfect, and to pass their lives
in giving her each day a portion of that spiritual life
which had been denied her.

For, in describing this young girl's condition, I am
far from tracing her constitutional and primitive portrait.
Cecile was at that time fifteen years old, that is to say,
for fifteen years her mother had never left her, had been
deprived of sleep and of all distractions, has imposed
upon herself privations in order to see her child sit,
stand, walk, look, hear, speak, in one word, live ; that is
to say, that her father had left an honored grade in the
army in order to relieve his wife in the pious incubation
of their child ; that is to say, for fifteen years they con-
tinued to recreate her in a common love

850 IDIOCY.

I had doubts as to the possibility of success; but, I
repeat, I did not then know Mad. and M. d'O. In yield-
ing to their wishes, I blamed more their confidence than
I should have their doubt in opposite circumstances, and
I called on them. I listened to the account of what little
progress had been made during the last three months (in
following out my directions) ; I verified their occurrence
in the person of Cecile, and I made sure that this pro-
gress, made upon special points and with limited means,
had exerted a salutary reaction upon the functions as a
whole, and even upon the external and evident appear-
ance of certain apparatuses. When ordered, the lips
were now brought together, the waist was better supported
in station, the articulations and the fingers were less lax,
and cooperated more firmly in certain manoeuvres. I
allowed myself to share the hopes of this excellent family,
who had full confidence in me. I indicated a precise
direction for the efi'orts of these parents, who signified
their intention of executing all my prescriptions ; for,
truly, it is they, and not I, who have made Cecile that
which she has become. I have prescribed, I have demon-
strated, I have analyzed, I have allowed nothing to go
by the hazard of improvisation or fancy ; everything
has been foreseen, rendered possible at its proper
time ; ' nothing remained but to execute, and this they
did and nobly

" Thanks to her good parents. Mile. Cecile is hardly
recognizable, even physically ; her forehead is become
higher,, roui;ded, and does not retreat with that angle
which depresses the anterior lobes ; it is small, but well

APPENDIX. 351

arched, with sensible rest at the coronal summit. The
cranium is developed posteriorly as well, and to-day, after
three years of sensorial, perceptive, and rational gym-
nastics, measures 50 centimetres (19.7 in.), 10 more (3.9
in.) than at fifteen years of age; She menstruates very
regularly ; under the influence of the active life she has
led, catarrhs are become rarer ; the trunk and members
have acquired normal habits ; the organs of speech are
more voluble, having lost their abnormal size, such as the
tongue and the lips, which close voluntarily.

General activity, without being great, is applicable ;
the nervous system is no longer excited without external
cause ; under the influence .of the latter, the disordered
manifestations of the former state are no longer visible.
Perfect harmony exists between the sensitive and motor
functions ; spasmodic movements no longer occur ; volun-
tary and coordinated movements and articular flexions are
all usual and easy. The walk, as well as ascent and de-
scent, takes place without any swinging ; the jump, the
race, the jumping-rope and the shuttle- cock, rather diffi-
cult exercises of special gymnastics, are become so many
games for miss, who now dresses herself, eats properly,
assists her mother in the household duties, etc. . . . The
tact has lost its unhealthy impressibility, the taste is
surer, the look has a precision and at times a persistence
really intelligent and voluntary. The voice is normal,
but still rather short, and does not always assist articula-
tion, which leaves nothing to be desired in the exercises.
Upon this point. Miss 0. is to-day like those stutterers
whose infirmity, hardly perceptible by their relations.

352 IDIOCY,

appears anew at the sight of a stranger; she also speaks
much better, more voluntarily and more frequently in
the family. Her appetite is more regular, her saliva no
longer appears outside, and the constant humidity of her
hands has given place to a more uniform perspiration.

Attentive, perceiving well ordinary objects and ideas,
she to-day intellectually takes to many social convention-
alities, from which she deduces ideas for her guidance.
Ciphering, is of the things taught her, that which she
comprehends the least ; nevertheless, if she does err in
counting, she at least knows the value of money ; and
when sent by her mother to do chores, she sees to it that
she is well served and carefully, paid, except some error,
when the sum asked is more than a few sous.

She has desired to learn music,' and the piano has
been made use of to regularize the voluntary movements
of her fingers ; I do not speak of the airs she can play and
which demand attention ; I think a great deal more of
her care in counting and writing down the clothes for the
washer-woman, which she does quickly and well. I have
letters from her, which are neither badly thought nor

written, and which were not dictated to her ;

and she has given me a little embroidered keepsake made
by herself alone ; she delights in sewing clothes for the chil-
dren of a neighboring poor-house, and her physiognomy
and fingers are quite animated by this charitable idea.
Her mother now no longer fears to take her into com-
pany, where her reserve, her propriety, and, after a while,
her gayety, draw affection to her. In following out per-
severingly one of my indications, her father has given her

APPENDIX. 353

a taste (which does not mean a technical knowledge) for
the Fine Arts, for great monnments,forstatu,es, for galle-
ries of paintings, which to-day are the favorite objects of
her walks, and she explains very well what she has thus
seen, particularly all that which, on canvas or in marble,
recalls Napoleon and the campaigns of Africa. Upon this
theme, her tongue loosens, her eyes flash ; while listening
to her, one involuntarily looks at the decorated button-
hole of the old soldier, who never was happier : and he
deserves it. — {Translation as above).

Obs. XXYI. — Profovnd Idiocy — Anterior amd Lateral
Mi(yroc&phal/y — No Complication. — Peter "W"., aged
eleven years, of a lymphatic temperament, tall and slight
for his age, has no special disease or infirmity ; a few pim-
ples, without specific characters, at times erupt upon his
face and hands. The cranium is raised at the sinciput,
wide at its medium base, slightly inclined backwards and
retreating in front as follows : A rather raised vertical
crest starts from between the superciliary arches and pro-
ceeds up to the summit of the skull ; slight flattening or
repose of the frontal eminences, whose summit alone is
thrown back ; rapid retreat from this point as far as the
temporal arch, which, far from describing its ordinary
parabolic course, approaches more nearly that of a por-
tion of a circle.

The face follows a plan perfectly harmonious with
this deformity, principally anterior and lateral : frotn the
orbital margin, which is prominent in the centre and
which retreats at the sides, and from the zygomatic arch
which slopes outwards towards the ear ; from that point

354 IDIOCY.

downwards, the base of the face gets sensibly thinner and
terminates by a very narrow inferior dental arch, a max-
illary bone still narrower, although the chin, quite clean-
cut, is a little advanced. Besides, no difference is to be
perceived between the two sides of the face and cranium ;
I note this harmony of the two sides and of the face with
the cranium, because it has always seemed useless to me,
when it existed, to seek for the cause of the idiocy either
in convulsions, or in epileptiform paroxysms, or in some
otherwise specified nervous condition, analogous to that of
idiocy with chorea, of which I have given an example.
(Obs. XXI., see Leopold N.)

The same harmony is to be noticed between the
trunk and the extremities, although the whole be slim, the
chest specially, narrow, and the attachments slight and
rounded. The general habit is a little sagging, without
anomaly ; the organs of speech are perfect, except that
the tongue is a little thick and heavy, compared with the
narrowness of the buccal cavity.

Peter has no applicable activity, although he expends
a great deal, and more than his constitution would re-
quire, in irregular, violent, and aimless movements. His
nervous irritability is extreme ; he often weeps, cries,
laughs, sings, without cause, and even without the slight-
est pretext. When in paroxysms of nervous laughter or
weeping, his look assumes a vacancy which would remind
one of that of dementia, were it not as brilliant, I might
almost say, as a diamond. This sickly, nervous sensi-
bility is developed to the tighest point by odors, heat,
storms, and music. From the' ensemble of these symp-

APPENDIX. 355

toms, of those we shall presently describe, and perhaps
also from the cranial anomaly above described, we might
conclude that the perceptive centres, as well as the nu-
merous ramifications of the tissues, are affected. In
fact, if the motor apparatus offers neither contractures
nor general incapacities, some parts of it do not the less,
in certain proportions and with reference to certain points
escape the control of the will. The fingers, in particular,
can obey this supreme infiuence only in movements of
totality. Tell Peter to raise the index, he cannot ; sepa-
rate the little finger or the thumb of your closed fists, and
command him to do likewise, he cannot ; he cannot
execute partial movements, and therefore would be inca-
pable of trying to learn the piano. More general, or
mean movements, which necessitate the action of an
entire organ, such as the hand, the arm, the leg, are
easier to him ; but they lack regularity and precision, and
are, besides, interfered with by spasmodic movements.

The great coordinated movements are less disordered
(might that be explicable by the apparent integrity of the
medulla oblongata and cerebellum ? , . . Double question
not to be solved on the living subject). It is nevertheless
true that the walk is less uncertain in cases of hydroce-
phaly and circular microcephaly, and that it is not jerky,
titubating, as in posterior microcephaly. Ascent and
descent are easy enough with the support of a person or
bannister ; running is possible, but very spasmodic ; "jump-
ing hardly feasible, genufiexion is difficult, and after it
the child cannot rise without assistance.

If his hands seize easily, they let -go quickly ; they can-

356 iDioor.

not long support even a light weight ; they receive it from
a distance with difficulty, and hesitate much before fling-
ing it, and badly at that.

Peter's tact is irritable, the smell and taste little formed,
the hearing uncertain, the look vague and incapable of
fixation for three or five seconds. His voice is high-pitched,
screaming, his articulation nearly nothing : nevertheless,
he can well repeat labials which are told him, even when
two are united ; he has but one sound for B and P, that
of the latter ; but one sound for L and 'N, that of the
last ; but one sound for D and T, also that of the second ;
besides, it is impossible for him to pronounce, even by
imitation, C, F, G, K, Q, E, S, V, X, and Z. Erethismus
has never shown itself in this child, brought up without
nurse or comrades, under the eyes of his mother. He
eats little, has a marked taste for nothing besides potatoes,
despises water and wine, is fond of eau-de-vie, eats nearly
alone, masticates incompletely, digests well ; excretions
are good, and almost always voluntary ; he only slobbers
when much moved by joy, anger, or impatience ; his per-
spiration manifests itself chiefly in the palms, on the
upper lip, and on the alae nasi ; his head never perspires,
but it diffuses an acrid and nauseating odor; his sleep is
short and light, at times agitated ; his pulse normal, his
respiration is short but regular.

His want of attention is extreme ; and if he does, by
accident, hear the demands made him, he is satisfied with
repeating them if they are short ; and if they are long, to *
repeat,in his confused language the final intonations of
the sentence. Without comparison, without other judg-

APPENDIX. 357

ment than that which bears upon objects of his choice,
without reflection upon any subject : we might allow him
to possess a certain spirit of mechanical combination, ra-
ther than any other faculty. Thus, although he lives in
the very midst of the rich tissues of our manufactures, he is
hardly struck by their brilliancy, and his retina is scarcely
impressed by their distinctive properties : he cannot dis-
tinguish black from white. He awaits Sunday with im-
patience, the day for walking, but without the least idea
of the succession of the days in the week, nor of hours,
nor of dimensions. He knows, by routine, four or five
letters and the first three digits, without being able to
spell two letters, or count objects up to three. He rather
often feels the need of singing, and then his look becomes
niore uncertain and his attention is abolished.

He likes to destroy, and has no regard for accidents
which may occur to his person ; although rather tender,
he pinches, bites, and bites himself occasionally; he is
rather insubordinate than rebellious ; restraint, threat, the
lightest punishment, enrages him ; his eyes become wild,
the venous plexus of the head and neck becomes con-
gested ;■ he no longer knows anything, and the most irre-
sistible tears and laughter take possession of his features.
Besides, he has a transitory knowledge of affection, of
petting, and of a sort of delicate and mincing amiability ;
of heedlessness, of gayety, and of imitation. He has the
sentiment of good and evil ; but too thoughtless to reflect,
he never knows that he does wrong, and often never per-
ceives the evil he has done : which neither prevents his
continuing or his commencing anew. Peter firmly wants

358 IDIOCY.

what pleases him ; that which displeases others, that is all
his will. Except that of his sister and mother, he seeks
the society of no one.

His mother is of a sanguino-bilious temperament,
active, delicate, and intelligent ; his father, once a robust
man, has alone escaped phthisis from among several
apparently strong sisters and brothers: I know of no
other hereditary disease in the family, nor any serious
circumstance preceding or following delivery. Peter has
had only the diseases peculiar to childhood ; but delicate,
puny, unable to walk before four years, his incapacity
has remained the same in all respects, save some little
improvement occurring from four to eleven years.

At the first sight, 1 might have mistaken Peter for a
simply backward child ; his grace, his amiability, the
gentleness of his physiognomy, all the aspects of his per-
son in calm momenta, led to such a conclusion. But a
more attentive study of the disorders of his functions, even
the psychological characters of his case, in moments of
action and irritability, did not allow of this, and I soon
had to rejoice at the severity of my diagnosis.

In fact, his case being judged one of profound idiocy,
the organopathic appearance indicated the characters of
the anterior and lateral microcephaly, the physiological
symptoms of which revealed partial and even somewhat
general disorders of myotility, and disorders of general
and tactile sensibility so grave, that I was obliged, me-
thodically speaking, to proceed rigorously; cold baths,
shampooing, contact of the extremities with heavy and
rough bodies, substantial food, chalybeates, repeated and

APPENDIX. 859

assiduous exercises of look and speech, standing immo-
bility, and while carrying weights in the hand for a time,
which increased from five minutes to half an hour several
times daily, such was the rather severe beginning of his
treatment; I repeat, it was hard for a child used to
gambol, and to do nothing but lounge from one part of
the room to another.

But if we consider that, upon this subject, from the
most gentle to the most violent moral means had been
tried in vain by his family ; that the raising of voice in
command, the appearance of force, and authority abruptly
manifested, stupefied him for a moment, agitated him,
bewildered him to the point that his laughter mingled with
tears lasted a long time, and rendered him incapable of
seeing or hearing — it may be understood how it was that
I seemed, for a time, to neglect all moral direction, and to
replace it by a series of active exercises, such as walking ;
and passive, such as shampooing — exercises which Peter
could not escape, which meals alone interrupted, which sleep
put an end to, which not only exercised all his enervated,
debilitated apparatuses, but which also concealed in their
continuity a tacit, but constant moral direction. For there
never seemed to be any question as to my will, or my
moral authority over Peter. I said, do this, do that, with-
out ever yielding ; I encouraged, begged, flattered, with
BO soft and caressing a tone, where, from another stand-
point, it would have been necessary to employ anger and
force against disobedience and revolt; I'so scrupulously
avoided the usual cause of his wildness and of his kind of
nervous delirium which I rarely saw, that his laughter

360 IDIOCY.

watered with tears, disappeared, at least for me in a few
months, and for his family after one year of this disguised
moral treatment ; and that with regard to his general ner-
vous state, he soon after resumed the habits common to all
children. It is true that, excepting at these critical mo-
ments, I brought the forms of command, speech, gesture,
look, back to their most precise and most significant types,
and that I also brought myself back to the habits necessary
to authority. Without this precaution, the more precise
exercises, the more sustained attention, the more exact
obedience which it would become necessary to require of
Peter, would have been impossible, and I could not then
have successfully combated the disorders of partial myo-
tility and those moral and psychological, and the vices of
speech so serious in this child : the most complete obedi-
ence and attention on his part could alone render effica-
cious the gymnastics of articulation and all other exer-
cises, in which Mad. W. has assisted ma like a mother
resolved to save her child.

Finally, thanks to the firmness I had displayed, all
the new exercises necessitated by these partial anomalies
were begun. The special movements, those of the hand and
eye, were rendered precise ; the articulation of all simple
syllables was effected by imitation, without too great diffi-
culty ; notions, where knowledge precedes reading, were
rapidly acquired. Peter soon used the crayon with rare
facility, and it was mainly while writing on the black-
board that he learned to read (we must utilize all apti-
tudes as soon as produced ; they are so many natural
indications which are worth more than the best systems).

APPENDIX. 361

My pupil was then sent to a boarding-school during the
hours of recreation ; he liked it, and that may be well to
do sometimes ; he exercised with other children, he ran,
played almost, that is, tried to play ; and if he did not
amuse the other children, what cared I, so long as he
amused himself, and his gayety and regularized petulance
grew into grace and amiability. It was then, after having
spoken unintelligibly for a long time (notwithstanding the
graduated speech exercises which his mother and myself
had made him, and in which he pronounced very cor-
rectly), it was only then, in the midst of .noisy animation
and the shrill, accentuated tones of his new comrades,
that he began spontaneously to pronounce words and
series of words intelligibly. At the end of two years he
read, wrote, ciphered a little, played heartily, attended reci-
tations respectfully, and obtained his small dose of instruc-
tion, half private and half common ; I saw him less, though
I still met him from time to time ; he still progresses, com-
ports himself well, is always rather delicate ; his father
wishes to give him one of those manual professions which
seem invented for persons desiring to Jive quietly on their
labor at the expense of little mind, some activity, and con-
siderable manual dexterity. — {Translation as above.)

Obs. XXYII. — Profoimd Idiocy — Posterior Microoe-
phaly — No Com/plication. — ^Pauline E., aged nine years;
sanguine, sickly, rachitic, small and very spare ; had no dis-
ease or accessory infirmity, except that she was the subject
of ozena. Her cranium rather well formed anteriorly, a
little large, and raised at its middle part ; was greatly

flattened as far back as the superior occipital curved line,.

23

362 IDIOCY.

whose slightly marked sinuosity was nearly straight. The
structure of the face had, in this cliild as well, a striking
analogy with that of the skull ; the eyes were round, the
cheek-bones large and prominent, the angles of the jaw
marked ; then contrarily, the nose was short and wide ;
the mouth narrow and flattened ; the chin heavy, narrow,
depressed, like the occipital bone.

, ,^ The general posture is relaxed, careless ; the members
flexed ; the fingers continually playing with one another.
The heavy mouth ; the open hanging lips ; the tongue
often appearing^ between the teeth ; the velum palati
low ; the long, irregular, serrated and striated teeth mostly
bad, form, a striking JDhysiognomy. The shape is form-
ing ; the loins are weak ; the chest delicate, and the abdo-
men is large and hard.

There is little activity in Pauline ; no active occupa-
tion, little general irritability ; there are involuntary
laughter, and tears and humming. The depression of the
long casing of the cerebellum seems to correspond with
certain partial nervous disorders, which are more severe
in the motor than in the sensitive functions. In the first
place, the sphincters of the mouth and bladder hardly at
all act, and btit imperfectly arrest the saliva or the urine ;
mechanical movements, such as self-gnawing, titillation,
are frequent ; the coordinated are impossible or disordered;
seated, lying and standing, immobility is accompanied by
balancing ; the walk is unequal, swinging and jerky, as in
drunkenness; the run and jump cannot be performed.
Pauline requires an arm or the help of banisters to de-
scend or ascend the easiest stairs. Her long, exceedingly

■ APPENDIX. 363

weak hands seize and hold badly ; can throw or receive
no hody whose handling requires strength or skill. She
can put on her stockings very poorly ; cannot change her
linen, etc., without help ; eats alone, dirtily. The tact is
delicate and painful ; cold, which has been so needful to
her, impresses her muph ; the greatest heat she is insensi-
ble to, and it only .causes her thick upper lip to perspire ;
the smell has some delicacy, and is the only sense whose
perceptions Pauline at all seeks for ; the taste would be
indifferent if she did not want ardent liquors ; the hear-
ing is normal ; the look uncertain ; the pupils large, dull,
and without animation. The harsh voice is always extin-
guished by a chronic catarrh, whose seat is extensive:
she has also a frequent bronchitic cough. Speech is
reduced to two or three repeated syllables, as pa — pa,
Tim — ma, ta — to, painfully pronounced, but the sense
of speech does, exist. The generative organs are the
seat of secretly kept up irritation, and of a greenish
lencorrhcea. The appetite is unequal, but on the whole
fair. Mastication is incomplete ^nd uncleanly ; deglutition
diflQcult \ the excretions abundant, and often involuntary ;
the saliva often dribbles from the mouth, or is projected
in the effort she makes to pronounce ; perspiration is
hardly sensible ; the odor of the head strong ; the sleep
sound, but preceded and followed by humming and by
swinging of the head. The pulse is quick and unequal —
this characteristic being increased after each meal. Ke-
spiratibn is difficult, and unusual exercise causes palpita-
tions.
Her attention is absent, but already fixable by the

364 IDIOCY,

will of others, if not by her own. She knows many
things and persons, but thinks and reasons on nothing ;
her intellectual faculties act only with regard to a limited
number of substantial phenomena, such as her doll, din-
ner, a line dress — the sole object she really desires, and the
only one towards which she manifests memory, reasoning,
precision. Sh* has no conception of money, time, nor mea,-
surements. She can neither read, nor write, nor cipher ;
likes to sing (and what ' singing !), is orderly, seci-etive ;
makes collections ; has pets-; is inoffensive ; is obedient as
her apathy will allow ; affectionate ; caressing ; gay ; fear-
ful ; distrustful ; but little imitative. She well knows
whether she does right or wrong, without extending this
sentiment beyond her common acts ; she has the will to
do nothing, to stand before a glass, whether seeing herself
or not, to know she is very handsome ; she then is con-
tent, and troubles herself but little about what surrounds
her — brothers, sisters, qr parents ; nevertheless she loves
her youngest sister, whom she caresses most, often with-
out seeing, I mean, looking at her.

Her mother is very sanguine, her father nerVbus and
delicate. I am not acquainted with the constitutional
diseases which may belong to the family ; but if I were
asked to say why Pauline is an idiot, I should rather be
inclined to attribute her condition to one of the condi-
tions before spoken of as sometimes preceding birth.

Pauline's condition has not been sensibly improved
by growth, for the taste she shows for dress is blit the
manifestation of a natural instinct ; it is the result of an
example which for children is authoritative, and which is

APPENDIX. 365

snch as to impress the dullest imagination, when the
always rather eccentric novelties of fashion are spread
out before the eyes.

Several things were to be considered before begin-
ning the treatment of this child.

Ist. The character of the incapacity, which was more
patent in the motor than in the sensitive functions, and
more upon these two orders of functions than upon those
of the intellect ; although, here as ever, these incapacities
were all connected and ruled by the supreme incapacity
of the will.

2d. A second indication, not less valuable, was that
of the state of thinness, of softening of the muscular tissue'
and the sphincters in particular.

3d. Did not the condition of the mucous membrane
indicate a constitution difiBcult to bring back to its nor-
mal state ?

4:th. How far would not that -which I was going to
undertake to reestablish, the synergy of these inert and
relaxed apparatuses, cause disorders in the nervous sys-
tem ; and what might I not fear from the gibbosity
already imminent at the time of beginning my obser-
vation.

5th. And more, would not the poor child (in the ex-
cess of her localized irritability), destroy by night that
which we should do during the day?

6th. And lastly, to start the speech, to force the
voice from the catarrhal sources in which it was, as it
were, lost, drowned ; should we not thus incur the risk
of giving an acute and bad turn to a chronic affection,

366 IDIOCY.

especially when palpitations occurred and the lungs
seemed weak and irritable?

Nevertheless, in the face of all these interlacing
symptoms, which seemed successively to prohibit the
attempt at educating the defective functions, it was ne-
cessary to decide ; for intellectual education was impossi-
ble before this regularization of the functionSj and the
age, far from assisting, rather hurried us. Nine years,
and nothing done, nothing learned, nothing practicable :
it is true Pauline was idiotic ; the greater reason for hur-
rying, would I have answered.

As there was more disorder in the coordinated, than
eccentricity in the partial or general movements, I re-
solved to attack the former, taking care to avoid all exer-
cises which might facilitate bad attitudes and tire the
spinal column ; at the same time that short, cool baths,
followed by friction, and accompanied by a tonic course,
should strengthen the- tissues. For instance, in order to
avoid bad positions, I commanded to Pauline no move-
ments from above downward, no attention of the look
which should not raise her head instead of lowering it,
as is done in boarding-schools, from which come so many
learned and distorted girls ; and in the exercises of the
hand I avoided all that could, by its weight, or by the
inequality of weight from left to right, cause an even
momentary disorder in the straightness of the spinal col-
umn'. Besides, I took care that all of her exercises should
be interrupted by frequent rests taken upon a seat
appropriate to her condition, the choice of which is de-
cisive in such cases ; and more, before allowing her to sit

APPENDIX. 367

down, I closed all work of the upper extremities by a
dorsal rectification upon the reversed (inclined backward)
ladder. Thus, my anxiety concerning the possible, nay
commencing, gibbosity ceased after the third nionth,
when I saw Pauline strengthen, straighten, and arch her
shape, at the same time that a growth, rare in such cases,
began to be measurable ; she has grown 14 centimetres
(5.5 in.) during the first year she was under my care.

All movements of the hand and arms which re-
quire strength or skill became easy to her ; she walked,
ascended, descended better. I had commenced, almost
concurrently with the preceding, the exercises of look ;
I had recommended and myself contrived such means as
I knew would be the least insufficient, to watch and pre-
vent Pauline's bad habits ; aromatic fumigations, gargles,
and nasal injections had been prescribed, and owing to
them there was already less hoarseness and more power
in the voice. 1 then treated the .matter of articulation
as usual with me, a repetition .of which would be tedious ;
I paid particular attention to the weakness of the labial
muscles and to the doughy immobility of the tongue, and
Pauline began to emit articulations precise enough at the
time when she knew her letters and began to read. Reading
was as useful to me to teach her to speak (that is to say, to
unite the isolated articulations I had taught her mechani-
cally and by imitation) as writing was to simplify the
Study of reading, and to fix the attention, impossible until

now.

For passive attention — attention to that which a third
party is doing — is much more difficult to obtain from a

868 ' IDIOCY.

child than the active attention which he must bring to an
act rendered possible for him ; for, by distraction, his
work is immediately interrupted ; the child feels it and
dares not be inattentive ; besides, we call him to atten-
tion when he acts, when it fails we support it, we provoke
it anew when it wanders, which is much better than if
there were, between the teacher and him, no irrecusable
sign of attention or inattention, the act which he interrupts
or continues, a sort of meter of the aptitude we require
of him. It is more especially with children more giddy
than stubborn, as was Pauline, that this means of sup-
porting attention is excellent. Besides, we should derive
no benefit from it if we were to apply it in aid of an exer-
cise to which the child was perfectly habituated : if it is
necessary for him to seek too much that which he is, to
do in his memory or his judgment, his attention expended
in intellectual operations, shall no longer as surely or as
long direct his look and his hand ; the more he shall try to
think, the less time he shall obey, and the master will run
the risk of mistaking a simple displacement of function
■for disobedience. His own awkwardness would have
raised this obstacle ; his is the fault : errare magistrv/m
esP let him always remember.

In order thus to fix Pauline's attention, the most
futile means, apparently, were useful to me, provided that,
being of easy comprehension, they should tend, insensi-
bly and independently of their principal object, to occur
pations the most proper for a woman not intended to
shine. Assiduously to thread large, then small, buttons
upon a brass wire, then upon a needle of cotton thread ;

APPENDIX. 869

to thread them by ones, twos, or threes, alternately white,
red, black, etc., thoroughly graduating. these diverse diffi-
culties which resolved theniselves into more than thirty
exercises ; to pass colored worsted into coarse canvas, to
fasten two pieces of muslin by a seam, to button and un-
button series of buttons, to lace and unlace eyelets, to
thread needles, cut paper, then clothes ; all these were
done upon a small, slightly inclined table, nearly as high
as the shoulders ; for we always had an eye to the shape,
in view of which object- writing and reading were exe-
cuted on a level with the eyes, as well as ciphering.

With attention, other mental operations became pos-
sible : it is true that Pauline never understood so well as
wben it concerned herself, her dresses, her neck-handker-
chief, etc., but was she then not a woman ! She was
thirteen when I ceased to direct her training.

I have seen her since, several times ; the last was at
a ball, where she, to all appearances, held her place ; I
did not see her speak to her partner, but after the qua-
drille she returned to her mother and talked to her for
some time, with a marked volubility which pleased me ;
she soon reentered a quadrille, where I remarked her, be-
cause everything in her interested me ; but no one seemed
*o notice the little remnant of hesitation which I could
see in all her movements. Besides, her attitudes did not
lack a certain erectness ; it was evident that she had'been
well taught since I left her. I should have liked to have
spoken to her. Who, as well as I, could tell her how much
handsomer she had grown from the time when she used
to spit in my face while tiying to move her lips ? But as

370 IDIOCT.

it would have been necessary to tell her she was most
beautiful, I thought her cavalier would do it better, and I
forbore. — {Translation as above!)

Since, several extreme cases of microcephaly have been
under observation in South Boston, Syracuse, etc. On
an average, and whatever may be the apparent site of the
deficiency, microcephalic children are more alike in their
infirmity than any other category of idiots: they are
particularly more so than the children grouped confusedly
by our ignorance under the appellation of hydrocephalic,
who diflfer so much among themselves in their physiolo-
gical anomalies. On the contrary, the true microcepha-
lic is quite active, lively, but unsteady. -He perceives,
more like auimals, one thing at a time, than two in cor-
relation, as men do; "he is eager and easily discouraged,
learning but forgetful, quick but unfixable ; very gentle
when gently treated, and susceptible of great improve-
ment. But we doubt not that sedulous -care must be
taken during his treatment, at certain seasons — periods
of his growth, and critical transitions of the training, that
his brain be not too much taxed and congested, or. com-
pi'essed by undue exertion : any over-work being rendered
more dangerous by the unyielding condition of a skull
thicker and earlier consolidated than the average, and
being known to have produced several nervous accidents
whose common result, not the worst, is to stop all further
improvement. It was necessary to insist upon this form of
idiocy, because it abounds in the institutions. This closes
the series of the various -forms of idiocy of central origin,
and uncomplicated with other pathological conditions.

APPENDIX. 371

The first complication of disease or infirmity with idiocy,
the most common in certain geological conditions, the
most rare here, is cretinism. • Therefore, our observations
of present cases cannot be expected to equal in vividness
the horrors of the Yalais ; but they will be found true to
those likely to be' met with in the schools of this country.

Obs. XXYIII. — Oretvnism {or Idiocy) of Hollcmd. —

Julieu M., studied at five and at eight years of age,
but not treated.

At Jive this child resembled a large monkey, fighting
with hogs in order to dispute with them the slops. His
cranium was flattened in front and at the top, face flat, lips
dependent, heavy tongue hanging from a slobbery mouth,
arms too long relatively to the body, general habit re-
laxed, glands tumefled, mesentery much developed, hard,
and resisting the pressure of the finger. There is no ac-
tivity beyond that of the appetite ; irritability seems con-
centrated upon- the dejective apparatus ; sensibility is
almost absent. Julien hums involuntarily ; swings
himself on his chair or on his feet, attitude which he
rarely assumes. There is a certain amoimt of equili-
brium, not in his forces, but in his inertia ; his motor and
sensory apparatuses are without activity ; the sucking of
his tongue, the chewing of his hand, filling up the inter-
val between his numerous meals.

It is only recently that he ' walks, and that only to
forage fobd ; he only uses his hands to carry things to his
mouth ; he has neither tact, nor smell, nor taste ; his
hearing is acute, and his hazel eye« emits a stupefied look.
His voice is low-pitched and drawling, his speech

372 - IDIOCY.

limited to a few syllables, not repeated, or repeated very
slowly, as P(b-^a, etc. His appetite is insatiable, bis
mode of eating beastly ; mastication is omitted ; diges-
tion slow and continual ; dejections involuntary ; all
conspire to render this child an object of disgust to the
neighborhood. In his mind, all that is not eaten does not
exist. Do not call his attention to,, or ask his judgment
upon, anything which is neither potato, bean, nor soiled
salad-leaf; he understands nothing, knows nothing.
Music, however, pleases him.

His instincts are brutal, without being aggressive to-
wards persons. Sad, one would call him courageous if he
knew what danger was ; and disobedient if he knew, right
and wrong ; without any other will besides stubbornness,
the greatest violence would not tear from his mouth, or
make him throw away the cabbage-stalk which he has
picked up from the dirt. If he may hold it, keep it ; if he
be allowed potatoes and plums ad libitum, the rest of the
world has no meaning for him ; he cares little for it.

At eight years, he is just as black, almost as dirty ; his
skull has grown wider without rising, his face has gained
a notable expression of contentment and gayety ; Ms
limbs are less disproportioned to his body ; his abdomen
is still hard and large ; he has gained in size, as a whole ;
and if his person is a little relaxed, it does not want a
rather strong and resisting build.

Eut activity has not improved with this anielioration
in health ; it always has the same object, without having
any other. There is the same general insensibility, co-
ordinated movements have become more possible, but

APPENDIX. - 373

they are slow, and particnlarly the walk is always swing-
ing and dragging; the senses have gained little; the
voice and speech somewhat improved, still drawl out at
long intervals syllables which cannot be united into
words. Julien no longer fights the boys to obtain a part
of their food ; but if he finds in the street a fresh lettuce-
leaf but half plunged in mire, then

" V occasion, Vherbe tendre,
Et le diahle aussi le poussant, ..." *

he eats it. That happens now but seldom, his mother •
says, and in fact she does not frequently catch him. He
only leaves a tree when not a single fruit is to be found.
He perfectly well distinguishes the golden tints of the
mi/rdbelle plum from the tasteless foliage which shelters
it ; but do not ask him which of these pieces of cloth is
yellow, which green ; what does 'he care about that ; it
is not eaten.

The Cure of the village (may God bless the good pastor !)
has had the patience to teach Julien some letters, and he
names them all correctly, though seeing, he does not re-
cognize them so readily. It is because of Julien's excel-
lent memory ; thus taking advantage of this intellectual

ft

peculiarity, he has not been taught to read, but certain
fables have been read to him, which he has faultlessly re-
peated, with his most dolorous and drawling voice. It was
a ray of light : since he could not learn to join two letters
(which would come' later), one might at any rate teach
him grammar ; no sooner said thaji done ; they, used to
read Julien a chapter in Noel et Cha^sal once, at most

374 IDIOCY.

twice, and he would stolidly recite it. He was just going
to begin a similar absorption of the catechism, and the
Cur6 was delighted with his progress, and his mother
already spoke of sending him to college, when I chanced
to see him again. He had been more than an hour under
one of those venerable plum-trees whose fruit he adored,
. in his way, and I had considerable trouble to induce him
to leave. However, I must say to his credit, that at last
he followed me in not too bad humor, into an adjoining
walk. There we had a little dialogue Which, on both
sides, I do not consider as witty enough to be entirely re-
ported ; but certain passages in it will throw more light
on Julien's character than would the most detailed ana-
lysis.

" Seguin. — Good-morning, Julien.

Julien. — (Slowly and swallowing a plum) Good-morn-
ing.

S. — Do you recognize me ?

J.— Tes.

S. — Where have you seen me ? '^

J. — ^Yesterday.

S. — Yesterday, I was not yet arrived.

J. — Father has told roe your name.

S. — Then you know my name, my little friend ?

J. — M. Seguin. ^

S. — Well, do you recognize me; have you seen me
before ?

J. — Your name is M. Seguin (after a'long effort) ; father
told me so.

I insisted much on this point without obtaining any

APPENDIX. 375

other answer. I touched the subject of his progress,
which he had so often heard spoken of that he was quite
fond of listening to it.

S.— You now learn well, do you not ?

J. — ^Yes, sir.

S.— What do you learn with the Our6 ?

J. — I will repeat some grammar to you.

S. — ^This morning, what have you learned ?

J. — The catechism.

S. — The whole catechism ?

J. — Shall I recite you my catechism ?

S. — No, my friend; but tell me what is an article ?

^ J. — (A little faster than when he speaks). The article
is a little word which is placed before the noun ; we have
but one article, le for the masculine, la for the feminine.

S. — ^That is very well. Will you give me an example
of a noun accopipanied by an article ?

J. — We have but one article, le

S. — Can you tell me the. name of a thing which you
know, and which requires an article ?

J. — I — do — not — ^know. (This is answered much more
slowly than he has recited).

S. — At least you know an object which has a name, a
substantive ?

J. — I — do — not — know.

S. — But you know what a pronoun is ?

J. — (Quite rapidly.) The pronoun is a word which
stands in place of a noun.

S. — In place of my name, what pronoun would you
make itse of to designate me ?

376 iDiocT.

J. — ^I —do — not — know.
] S. — Sometimes you say to your mother : Will you
let me go into the garden ?

J. — Yes sir, but she will not. v

S. — l^ow listen. When you say to her, will you let
me go into the garden, do you not use a pronoun ?

J. — I — do — not — know, etc. etc.

Dr. Guggenbiihl mentions an Alpine cretin which seems
to have had many analogies with this one. However, by
dint of care, he was at last made a sort qf savant who
knew botany pretty well. Did he become more judicious,
more spontaneous ? That is not mentioned. AsforJulien,
the same chance which brought him to ray notice, has also
removed him ; but I very much doubt whether his botani-
cal learning ever extended much beyopd the interesting
order of Sola/naceae.

This is a case of slight cretinism of the low country of
Belgium. The next, more characteristic, is from the low
land of East Virginia — {Tramslation as above).

Ob8. XXIX. — S., 17 years old, is 'tall, straw-colored,
always seated in a bent and crouching like posture, balanc-
ing her body backwards and forward, moving her head
in a rotatory manner, and glancing her eyes from side to
side ; triple automatic movement. When she has no amu-
let to amuse her thin lingers, she keeps them in her
mouth or extends them like feelers' at the approach of
some body ; her hands hanging like the fore-paws of the
kangaroo. The face is small and regular, the forehead
smaller, and the rest of the cranium smaller still, though
very harmonious in their proportions, which are above

APPENDIX. 377

microcephaly proper, but under the norma. The neck,
poor at its connection with the head, spreads nearer the
shoulders, manifestly ornamented in front with a soft and
discrete' goitre. There is slight hemiplegia of the right
side, whose hand and foot are colder than the left.

Ab soon as she is aware of the presence of strangers,
she does not look at them ; but her triple ialcmoement of
the body, of the head, and of the eyes, increases ; then
extending her hands, she begins in a half-plaintive, half-
mnsical tone : " S. wants an apple ; S. is a good girl ; S.
wants this ; S. wants that ;" without cessation. But if the
visitor comes near enough, she, without looking at him,
touches delicately his garments with her hands or lips if
she can, trailing her nose along the parts she tries to appre-
ciate by deep inspirations. To the question : " "What are
you doing there, S. ? " she would answer : " S. smells the
doctor," etc., always speaking of herself as if she were a
third person.

If she is coaxed or impelled to change her crouching
posture, she cries, and bites her hand in a flood of saliva ;
altogether looking lonely and out of sorts among the
lowest idiots, which are generally younger than she, mute
or not so garrulous as she is ; but altogether very different
from her.

She is absolutely incompetent to do anything. The

only thing she is eager to secure, like a studious child, is

a book. She holds it with her left hand, at the same

time dangling her right away. She smells and grazes

with her lips the cover of it and every successive page,

till she knows the whole of it, not by heart, but by the

24

878 IDIOCY.

taste, touch, and smell. She varies these modes of sen-
sorial studies of the hook by blowing a strange tune
through its pages, diminutive imita.tion of the long sor-
rows told by a night-storm to the Italian poplar. Thus
used, her favorite book is soon, not well thumbed, but so
profoundly lipped, that there is an indentation more than
an inch deep in the edge of the leaves of the book.

But when her parents visit her, she comes out from
that vegetative life; rises and walks willingly, though
awkwardly, to meet them ; and her bowing propensities
take quite a touching turn. Seated between them, she
straightens her forward bend and balances her body, no
longer forward and backward, but sideways from the
father to the mother. Her hands hanging yet, but full
of life, play rapidly right and left like fans ; her eyes half
shut, moving swiftly, but not looking ; her head grazing
alternately one and the other ; occasionally she wants to
kiss them ; oftener she prefers sliding her lips along the
sleeves of the coat or of the dress, saying in her mono-
tonous lullaby: "Father! Mother!" It is not yet six
o'clock (the time of their departure), " Father ! Mother !
you love S. don't you ? Father ! Mother I " Then she asks
the news from home, but never speaks of going home
herself; if questioned on that subject, instead of answering
she repeats : " Father ! Mother ! you love S. ! S. wants an
apple," etc., etc. Sometimes she looks for something that
belongs to either of them, as a knife or glove. She seizes
it without looking, and keeps it under her nostrils during
long inspirations ; and soon again she follows the forms
of their garments with her lips or with her sickly fingers,

. . APPENDIX. 379

■which collect those unearthly contacts and transmit their
impressions to the brain. Who could appreciate the feel-
ings of the mother and father at parting after such an
interview. ,

And yet, though apparently incapable of receiving any
education, properly speaking, her attention to the phe-
nomena perceivable by the ear, if not to those perceivable
by the eyes, has become remarkable ; in a single year that
she is in the N. T. Institution, she has improved mostly in
the qualities which promote personal happiness — as obedi-
ence, quietness, order, and certainly became more con-
tented and less irritable.

Obs. XXX. — D. and G. are twins, 11 years old, resem-
bling cretins by the color of their skin, the prominence
of their thyroid cartilage, with the husky voice it pro-
duces, and by their undersized stature, with a heavy head,
whose thick bones are compressed circularly at the base.
These brothers are perfectly alike in shape, color, propor-
tions, voice, gestures, habits, and modes of perceptions
and feelings, even to peculiarity ; except that G is a mere
attenuation of D. in everything ; a little more than his
shadow, a defaced copy ; his like, but not certainly his
equal. To educate them, the immediate diflBculty
appears to have been that G. would do nothing but
what D. had done; acting, speaking, willing after his
brother ; nothing beyond. This subordination of one life
to another was so complete that it appeared impossible
to educate the weaker, at least without separating him
from his stronger prototype ; and though kept together in
the Institution, it was judged necessary to separate them

380 IDIOCY.

in the school. This plan seemed to work pretty well,
since under it both children improved. But D. kept
always far ahead of G., both making the same kind of
progress, only in the previous ratio.

Nevertheless, suspecting that the old plan of !N"ature
could with advantage be at least alternated with the
rational process, we asked D. if he would like to teach
his brother to read ; and he said with a decided expres-
sion of pleasure that he would like it indeed. Accord-
ingly we forthwith sent him after Gr., who came close to
him and began to read monosyllables, D. correcting his
numerous errors encouragingly. We remained purposely
at a distance, apparently busy with some other children,
to leave the twins all their liberty ; and thej' continued
faithfully, one to read badly, the other to correct the
errors to the best of his knowledge, and with a charming
indulgence, till the sounds of the bell broke all the
studious groups and put an end to their exercises also.
Then having noticed how near one another they stood in
reading, we called them again, and having put them a
little apart, we began talking to them ; when insensibly
they came nearer and nearer till both seemed in the act
of auditing, united sideways, as are the Siamese twins in
their flesh. Purposely separated again, they once more
came in contact by that insensible process which looked
more like attraction than movement. All the while they
were entertained about their preceding lecture; asked
how they would like to read and study together, etc.; D.
would say that he would like it very much ; and G. would
soon utter the same assent in a lower tone, word for word ;

APPENDIX. 381

every movement of D. being followed by the same from
G. ; they keeping all the while close together ; their fea-
tures more expressive of tenderness than of idiocy.
When the rather painful experiment was over, D., as
ordered, led G. back to his room, and before leaving him,
one hand yet on his shoulder, told his brother, with his
confused articulation and husky voice, in quite a paternal
manner ; " I will teach you to read, my son."

The reader, dissatisfied, as we are, with the incomplete-
ness of these representations of idiots affected with seve-
ral forms of the wild cretinism of the lowlands, must
look to the book of Dr. Guggenbiihl mentioned in the
Bibliography, a book likely to be found rich in pictures of
cretinism aggravated by idiocy.

As cretinism affects evidently the skin, we cannot dis-
sever from it a form of idiocy in which the skin isfurfura-
ceous. Our incomplete studies do not permit of its actual
classification ; but it is better to leave things by them-
selves, than to force them into classes which have their
foundation only on paper.

Obs. XXXI. — ^M. A. is nine years old, very small of
her age, but quite gay and healthy. The rounded or
shortened termini of all her lineaments, the truncated
nose, the unfinished-like fingers, the scanty red lids, the
cracked tongue and lips, the cranium so evenly rounded
like a cylinder, and the white, pulverulent covering of
her rosy skin, all contribute to make her look half pitia-
ble, half ludicrous. But with all her external drawbacks,
she is fast improving, and a child deserving respect and
affection. Other cases of a similar but aggravated char-

382 IDIOCY.

acter have been observed, but the desci-iption of their
repulsive symptoms would not make us less ignorant of the
true nature of their affection, "We have not seen enough
of this affection to express any opinion upon it, but as a
conjecture : and we hazard the hypothesis that it is a
variety of idiocy connected with some form of hereditary
cretinism. One more fact concerning them : several of
them died young, of pneumonia, metastatic of erysipelas
The child chosen here as a good representative of the kind,
M. A., shows that, in spite of their disagreeable appear-
ance, they are morally good children to deal with ; that, in
spite of the heaviness of their cracked and thick tongues,
they may learn to speak, and even become quite loqua-
cious, with an incorrect utterance ; and in spite of their
apparent stupidity, they may a acquire a stock of know-
ledge and of practical common sense ; for in ten months
M. A. had overcome the major diflSculties of the training
and began to learn and to behave like ordinary children —
she but recently cast away as repulsive and incurable.

Now, unavoidably, comes the painful subject of idiocy
complicated with epilepsy. To do it full justice, it ought
to be represented in its triple aspect : 1st. Epilepsy caus-
ing idiocy, imbecility, dementia, or paralysis. 2d. Epi-
lepsy supervening in cases, of already confirmed idiocy or
imbecility. 3d. Idiocy and epilepsy, both working inde-
pendently or reciprocally the destruction of the same
being. "We have studied the subject far enough to estab-
lish these distinctions, but are not prepared to present
living types of them. Therefore, excepting a reference
to Obs. 11., we mention only the two following :

APPENDIX. 383

Obs. XXXII. — ^T., eight years old, finely built from
head to foot, idiotic of the lower type, epileptic from
infancy. What is noticeable in him is his insensibility to
what causes pain to ordinary persons (hence he tears his
skin and even his flesh without apparent suffering) ; his
fondness for music (he sings with great taste and pu-
rity, though he cannot learn anything else) ; and finally,
his mechatiical speech, that is to say, one emitted invol-
untarily, very different, even in its occasional abundance,
from the real language, which is always a faculty exer-
cised by the mind more or less under the control of the
will. The other child, equally idiotic and epileptic, was
attended with uncommon care by Prof. T. Eichards.
This pupil made several strides towards a cure, which were
subsequently defeated by the more powerful action of the
recurring spasm.

The complication of idiocy by chorea and other nerv-
ous diseases is well exemplified in the cases of the two
following pupils of Dr. H. B. "Wilbur, and described by
himself. — (Annual Report, etc., 1866.)

Obs. XXXIII. — E. C, a girl twelve years old, subject
to chorea nearly from birth, and also deaf and dumb.
(See Obs. XXI. for the complication of chorea, and
Obs. XLII. for that of deafness.) Had a pleasant face
when the muscles were quiet. Began to walk at three
years old, but walked, when admitted to the asylum,
with a rolling motion. Understood signs to some extent.
Was very amiable and obedient.

" Of course in this case the instruction was entirely
through the eye, and the advantages in such a case iu

384 . IDIOCY.

this institution will not bear comparison at all with those
of an institution for deaf mutes. Her chorea and her
mental deficiency precluded her admission to such an
one. She remained in the asylum six years, improving
steadily all the while, and left it able to write, to read a
little, and with some knowledge of the relations of num-
bers. In household matters she acquired no small degre&
of proficiency — though when she came she had very little
control of her hands.

"She could sew and knit, work figures in colored
worsted from a pattern. She was very useful in the din-
ing-room and in other household matters.

" She was retained at home at the last vacation, though
quite anxious to return to school, because in the judg-
ment of her friends the object of her having been sent
to the asylum had been fully accomplished."

" M. C, a girl ten . years old, sister of the foregoing,
came to the asylum a year later, the mother being in-
duced to send this, her only ;'emaining child, by the
marked improvement witnessed in the case of the oldest.
She resembled the older sister, but her infirmities were
less marked. Her chorea was very slight ; her walk better ;
she had more control of her muscular system generally ;
she was only slightly deaf, and this fact would have given
her a great advantage in mental development over the
former, only she was one of the class of cases where there
is what may be called a deafness in the perceptive ear.
She did not notice sounds unless very loud or unless her
attention was first attracted in some other way. With this
peculiarity, she, of course, had a very limited comprehen-

APPENDIX. 385

sioii of language uniess accompanied by gestures or signs.
She said but a few words, and these quite indistinctly and
with the same want of modulation and slight timidity of
utterance commonly noticed in those who have become deaf.
"She knew nothing of housework, and could sew but
very little. As she was the youngest child in the family,
she had been waited upon and petted in no small degree ;
and, whether as cause or effect, she manifested great child-
ishness of manner. Her disposition was amiable. She
has now been in the asylum five years. Her nervous man-
ner and motions have in great measure disappeared. She
listens as well as hears better. She has learned to compre-
hend language. She reads quite well in the elementary
reading-books of the school-room. And she comprehends
the meaning of the printed page not directly through the
medium of the eye, as in the case of deaf mutes, but indi-
■ rectly, as the printed words are the signs of spoken words
of which she knows the meaning. She can and does talk
connectedly and sensibly upon matters within the range of
her intelligence and knowledge ; a slight lisp being the
only defect in her speech.

" She can enumerate and read numbers as high as thou-
sands ; can add, subtract, multiply, and divide large numbers
with ease. She writes very well, imitating her copies with
much exactness. She exhibits considerable taste in draw-
ing, and her drawing-books, in the opinion of her teacher,
would compare favorably with those of advanced classes
in our common-schools. This mental progress had to be
made at the outset under the difficulty of contending
against a sense of hearing practically closed.

386 IDIOCY.

" Out of school hours she has received and responded
most favorably to the instructions that fall within the du-
ties of the matron. She now requires no help in dressing
and undressing, and assists in the care of other children.
Her hair and teeth and dress are properly and neaitly cared
for by herself. She makes herself very useful in washing
dishes, sweeping, making beds, etc., etc. At the table she
conducts herself in a quiet and lady-like manner, and
when invited out to tea (at the table of the Superintendent)
she manifested considerable tact in watching and following
the observances of the table. She is very handy with her
needle. Can sew and knit as well certainly as most girls
of her age. Has learned several kinds of fancy-work, and
can reproduce a pattern with worsteds upon card-board or
canvas without help of any kind.

" Her judgment and her industry is such in work of any
kind, that she can be trusted to plan and do an entire piece
of work without direction or supervision.

" She is, in short, capable and faithful ; obedient and
amiable.

" The results in her case are more satisfactory than in
that of her sister. At the end of the present year, 1866,
she will be returned to her family, able to assist efficiently
in household matters, able to take pleasure for the remain-
der of her life in the reading and writing, and other
school acquirements she has learned here, and a source of
omopt to her family."

The same complication of idiocy with chorea has been
noted in Obs. XI., presented above, as illustration of the
characters of profound idiocy. Our successes and failures

APPENDIX. 887

iu treating choreic children, idiots or not, has led us to
establish a complete difference in our prognosis, accord-
ing to the time of invasion of chorea. The earlier mani-
fested the more difficult to cure, is the sum of our personal
experience.

The following are examples of idiocy, with automatism
of various forms : —

Obs. XXXIY. — "W. G., get. ten, pale, delicate-looking,
regularly built, eyes deeply set, came to the New York
Asylum six months ago, with a swinging gait, nearly
mute ; helpless, except to feed himself, and absolutely
uneducated. He was used to rub his head against any-
thing, so that the back part of it was particularly shorn
of hair. If interrupted in that automatic practice, or
otherwise displeased, he would scream, and throw himself
on the floor in despair. Now he has lost the automatic
motion of the head, begins to read, to draw a little ; stands
in decent attitudes, takes cognizance of what happens
round, and when called comes forward with an evident
expression of willingness ; otherwise he is yet shy, distant,
and cheerless. As he is to-day, William looks like a
backward child ; as coming first from home, before the
substitution of regular to automatic movements of atten-
tion to vacuity, of incipient forwardness (gently pro-
voked) to diffidence and wrath, he was ranked among
low idiots.

Obs. XXXV. — ^Wal. is a microcephalus of a low grade,
and after several years of training has improved enough
to be quite happy, and of little use. He would not be
mentioned here, but for the peculiarity of his automatic

888 IDIOCY.

movements. These, instead of being acted by the hand,
or limbs, or iingers, consist in a noisy snap of the bones
of the shoulders, more audible than that produced by the
knee or the fingers, and which he seems capable of repro-
ducing at will. To hear that crepitation repeated in the
otherwise uninterrupted course of a lesson on A, B, C, or
colors, causes a feeling of discomfort which time nor dis-
tance may attenuate ; we hear it yet, if we cannot explain it.

The following i§ a curious example of mechanical move-
ments : —

Obs. XXXVI. — Oath, was known, from six to twelve
years, to live on the floor, bumping her head, and being
quite unmanageable. Several years of physiological
training have taught her to walk, stand, use her hands for
ordinary purposes, and behave generally. She is become
stout, healthy and orderly, except in one respect. The
automatism which primarily urged her to strike with her
head has concentrated its force in the elbow, which she
now propels violently against persons nearing her. Let
any one come to her side, and strike she must. If you
try to protect the new-comer by stringent orders, you will
succeed only so long as your eye is strongly riveted upon
the elbow ; this desire is irrepressible indeed, for as soon
as your eye does not corroborate your command, strike
she will, like an electric eel. Curious and rare example
of automatism transferred and transformed, not cured, and
preserved in the midst of the numerous normal move-
ments newly acquired by education.

The two following cases of idiocy in its apparently worst
forms, and long supposed to be of the worst kind, exem-

APPENDIX. 389

plify very well the growth of the affection, even when it
is supposed to be brought on by simple isolation of peri-
pheric origin, and the curability of the same when treated
on the principles of physiology.

Obs. XXXVII. — Willie, a stout, middle-sized boy of
about twenty-four, stands smiling with a grimace caused
by a remnant of chorea, and with a clumsy shutting and
opening of both hands, which seem to call for something
to do, as they actually want. His mate Nattie is gone ;
more infirm, smaller, sweeter, but not truer than Willie.
Both taken from the Eandall's Island Hospital, N. Y., as
the lowest specimens of idiocy. They were from birth
choreic, and more or less affected with general paralysis.
I^either of them could speak, nor appear to hear or under-
stand, except a few simple commands expressed more
by gestures than by words. When they started for
Syracuse, the resident physician of, the Island expressed
his opinion that the choice of these two pupils from among
so many other idiots was an unfortunate one, because they
could not possibly do any credit to the new State Institu-
tion just opening for idiots.

" I hurried them," says Dr. Wilbur, " into the bathing-
room, and brushed, and combed, and api'oned them after
their' journey, before they should be seen by the teachers;
for I feared the discouraging influence upon my new
assistants of seeing these poor unfortunate children. But
they soon felt the genial influence of our special system
of instruction adapted to their want and deficiencies, and
returned a daily recompense for the care and labor be-
stowed upon them."

390 IDIOCY.

Three years later, the President of the Board of Trus-
tees of the School, Mr. James H. Titus, received from the
office of the Aims-House of 'New .York, the following
note: "We must not forget our two boys, Nattie and
Willie. You, I am sure, remember their condition when
under our care at Randall's Island ; to see them now,
under the tuition and care of your institution, almost in
full possession of all the ordinary faculties of the mind,
taught as ordinary children are, receiving the benefit and
comfort of habits of cleanliness and order, and by means
of special treatment, made participants in the enjoyment
of life, as well as an appreciation of a happy future, calls
from us a united expression of our confidence in the
asylum." — Signed, Simeon Draper, President of the Board.

Nattie and Willie, examined again in 185Y by the
Commissioner of the State of Connecticut, are represented
in their report to the Legislature, which resulted in the
foundation of a school for idiots, as greatly improved.
" Both now exhibit as much intelligence as ordinary chil-
dren of their age. Neither speaks very intelligibly, in
consequence of some paralysis still existing ; but both are
rapidly improving in this respect ; both write well on the
J)lack-board. In thorough knowledge of grammar and
geography, very few children of their age are their equals.
In a very severe and protracted examination in geogra-
phy, embracing minute details in regard to the topogra-
phy of most of the countries on the globe, and many par-
ticulars in regard to physical geography, and in drawing
maps upon the blackboard — though with paralyzed and
contracted hands, neither they nor the other members of

APPENDIX. 391

a class of six or seven missed a siogle question. In gram-
mar, both supply adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs to
given nouns and verbs with remarkable promptness and
to an extent which would have severely tasked my voca-
bulary. In arithmetic, both exhibited perfect familiarity
with the ground rules, and JS'attie gave at once any and
all multiples of numbers, as high as 132; and added,
multiplied, and divided fractions with great readiness."

Since the legislative doqument from which we take
this extract was written, the two Commissioners, impressed
with the social and scientific importance of this field of
labor, have become, one, the Superintendent of the Con-
necticut State School for Idiots ; the other has gratuitously
constituted himself the historiographer of idiocy in this
country ; and has done more than any other man, by the
multiplicity and cleverness of his writings, to make the
subject popularly understood, and to prepare the nation
at large to consider as one of the social duties the care and
education of idiotic children. To come back to our children.
An incident related by the earlier teacher of idiots at Albany,
Miss Clark, may give an idea of Nattie. One day that
strangers were admitted, one of them presented to Nattie
a problem that he knew the child liad not yet come to in
the course of his mathematical studies. Miss Clark saw
it, and ^Jfattie saw it as quick as her, for his large lustrous
eyes were inquiringly upon hers, which being speaking
too, seemed to say to the disconcerted boy, " You must
solve it." At this mute order, Nattie, walking on the tip
of his crooked feet, and holding the chalk in his crooked
hand, came warmly to kiss her, as if to say : " Never mind,

392 IDIOCY.

I will do honor to yonr teaching ; " and turning to the
black-board, solved the problem. A woman may grow
old and careworn after that; she wears a jewel that the
pawnbroker cannot stow away, and her children will show
it with pride. Nattie, with all his acquired refinement of
intellect and feeling, remained too much of a cripple to
do any manual labor ; he is a tender companion to his
mother, and appreciates the benefits conferred upon him
by the Institution.

"Willie is less refined, though very sensitive, but more
practically improved. He has not left the "asylum, where
he finds always plenty to do ; his notions of social duties
are connected with it, and only second to his religious
principles. He weeps sincerely at the news of the assas-
sination of the martyr of Springfield. Having been very
serviceable, not only to the Institution but to casual in-
mates, he was often rewarded for it, and now possesses a
little pocket-money which he loves to increase. Never-
theless, on two occasions, to our personal knowledge, he
'showed that there was something higher than money in
his mind. Once he worked cheerfully, out of respect for
one who he knew could not repay him ; and at another
time, in prevision of some expected reward, he managed
to let out that the present of a life of Jesus Christ would
be more agreeable to him than money. His moral sense
is as high as it could b'e in any human breast.

Obs. XXXYIII.-^— 0. is a good type of idiocy, compli-
cated by hemiplegia. When six months old, he had daily
convulsions, which lasted six months more, and were fol-
^ lowed by a severe attack of pneumonia. After this it was

APPENDIX. 393

discovered that he was hemiplegic. He walked late and
clumsily, humming sounds instead of talking, and slob-
bering profusely. In that dull kind of, infancy, he took
interest neither in things, images, dolls, or the like ; but
was mischievous and stupid, ungovernable and uneduca-
ble. In 1862, when eight years old, he was admitted to
the N. T. School, and put to a severe training to equalize
the functions of his body, right and left. His intellectual
and moral education was pushed with vigor and success,
and after three years, 0. stands, as nearly as possible for
an idiot, on an equality with ordinar;f children, and his
two sides feel and act nearly alike.

The following case is taken from the reports of Dr.
Wilbur to the N. Y. Legislature :

Obs. XXXIX. — " T., a boy six years old, came to the
institution of Syracuse, in January, 1862. He had con-
vulsions from eight months to two and a half years old,
almost daily. They left him with paralysis of one side.
He sat and walked also quite late; and when entering
here walked very clumsily, often falling. He could not
dress nor imdress himself. His want of intelligence was
clearly to be seen in his countenance, in his carriage, and
in his very hair, even to a casual observer. He under-
stood only the simplest language, such as the ordinary
commands addressed to young childrea. He began to
try to speak at two years "old, but could say only a few
words, and those indistinctly, and in an imitative way.
He did not discriminate the most simple forms .and col-
ors ; he had no idea of numbers, and though brought up

under intelligent parents who attempted to teach him,

25

394 IDIOCY.

nothing had heen accomplished by their efforts. Once
in the school, there were, however, vei \ soon indications
to the experienced eyes of those connected with the asy-
lum, that he was a promising pupil.

When he returned from the last vacation his mother
sent a statement of his comparative condition from 1862
to 1865, from which the following is an extract :

" Since his residence in the asylum his health has im-
proved, his countenance looks more fresh than formerly.
Then he fell down very easily and often when walking ;
he was awkward in* the use of his arms and hands, and
there was a stiflPness of the fingers. He now walks with
much more firmness, and has acquired a very good
degree of control over his muscular system, as is mani-
fested in writing, etc. His bodily restlessness has
given place to mental activity ; he now likes to play
with other children ; formerly he preferred to amuse
himself alone.

" He now wishes to wait upon himself in all matters.
We find him much more gentlemanly at the table ; he
now selects such food as he prefers, and tell us when he is
satisfied; formerly we were obliged to guess what he
wanted, and how much. He can dress and undress him-
self almost entirely without assistance, washes himself
before meals, combs his hair and brushes his teeth with-
out being prompted. He now has considerable regard
for dress, and notices untidiness in others.

" He n-ow seems to understand nearly all we say to him
respecting plain every-day matters. When he entered the
institution, he could hardly speak a word distinctly ; but

APPENDIX. 395

now he speaks most words quite plainly, every day using
a greater variety of words. He now converses upon
almost as great a variety of subjects as any child of his
age and experience. His memory is more retentive. He
remembers and relates many incidents which have oc-
curred in relation to his teachers, associates, school, etc.
His attention is much more readily fixed upon any object.
When he left home he hardly noticed any object ; now he
seems as much interested in what is going on in the fields
and streets as most children ; he is particularly interested
in machinery.

" He can read easy lessons, writes well upon a black-
board, and astonishes all who hear him in numbers.

" He remembers dates surprisingly, and greatly prefers
a hard question in multiplication to an easy one. He is
more steady and quiet ; has attended church every Sab-
bath, when well ; behaves well and orderly, and is care-
ful to imitate others in his deportment. He has also
attended Sunday-school, committing easy lessons. He is
less selfifh ; more ready to share his gifts with his sisters,
and yields to their wishes when at play. He recognizes
the distinction between right and wrong much more
clearly, talks about the sin of telling falsehoods, thieving,
etc. ; notices improper talk and conduct in other chil-
dren. He reasons quite well upon little practical matters ;
he has much more self-control than formerly; is quite
obedient, understanding the reasons of our requirements.
Better yet, if he manifests a rebellious spirit, a little calm
reasoning will usually quell it ; he was always very afiec-
tionate, yet very passionate. He assisted his father a

396 IDIOCY.

little in the hay -field, though of course he is too young
to labor much.

"In fact, we are disappointed in no respect in his
progress and improvement at the Institution, unless
it be that he learns so rapidly. We did hope that he
would recover the use of bis limbs in walking to a greater
degree, though the Superintendent gave us no special
encouragement in that respect. He has learned reading,
writing, and spelling sooner than we dared to hope ; while
in figures his progress is most remarkable. We feel
that our warmest gratitude is due to all connected with
the Institution."

For idiocy with paraplegia a reference to Obs. V.
and XXXIX. will suffice, inasmuch as this complica-
tion does not seem to aggravate it more than the pre-
ceding. The next case is an example of local paralysis
found among deficiencies of the will to command the
movements ; very deceptive form indeed, and also remark-
able for its contrast with the cases of mutism due to de-
ficiency of the will. (Obs. XLV., etc.)

Obs. XL. — M., a well-built, robust, florid girl of thir-
teen ; forehead low, sutures rough, and occipital bones
laterally depressed, but without real deformity of the
skull. Expression sad and vacant, hands extremely- deli-
cate in proportion to her general build ; could not help
herself when she came to Syracuse nine years ago. At
that time she was a perfectly helpless young girl, for with
her motor functions unimpaired, she would not stir for
hours, as if she was paralyzed ; but on a sudden she would
run like a deer if frightened or otherwise impelled to do

APPENDIX. 397

SO ; evidently the function of locomotion was perfect, but
the will, even instinct, had but rarely command over that
function.

But as for the function of speech it was just the reverse.
Though a fine hearer, she was dumb, not only in articu-
late words but in voice ; and if she needed or was pro-
voked to speak out, she would throw her hands around
her neck as if to say with the anguish of a suppressed
will, " I can't."

This trait, as well as the comparative harmony of her
movements, when she was incited to move at all, semeed
to rank her case among those of superficial or peripheric
idiocy ; though other symptoms, and the refractory condi-
tion of her mind, or idiotism proper, to use here in its
right sense the word of Pinel, would leave room for the
suspicion that she was also affected with some deeper dis-
organization, which, without disturbing much the har-
mony of the movements, produces the intellectual results
consequent upon profound or central idiocy ; but there was,
for us at least, uncertainty both ways.

She did not accustom herself to the life of the Institu-
tion, and could be scarcely improved either by individual
teaching, or by immersion in the general training ; she
remained unmoved, mute, vacant, and looking far away
from surrounding objects as if to see her home in West-
chester county.

Five years later we met her there, seated among her
brothers and sisters. She rose instantly, giving an unmis-
takable evidence of recogaition. She looked coarser
than at Syracuse. In partial furtherance of the plans of

398 IDIOCY.

the school, she had been taught by a younger, sister to.
clean the dishes and do a few other things, which she
does like an obedient, but absent-minded child. Since,
we have seen her occasionally, mostly at the gate ; her
large chin reposing on her thin hand, her head slightly
reclined, her eyes looking farther than any of us could
see. If a friendly face happened to pass, she would
make with her head and hand a gentle bow of recogition,
and relapse into her absent mood. Hours thus pass away ;
dusk finds her in the same attitude ; the colts prancing
from the pasture want admission at the gate ; M. claps
her hands at their gambols ; her young sister leads the
colts to the stable, and Mary follows her gently home.

In her case the trial at education, which failed, was
very short, but it is doubtful if a longer effort could have
succeeded better. And another doubt comes unavoida-
bly across the mind : was not M. more happy in her va-
cant and quiet state than educated to work ten hours a
day in competition with the slaves of the factory ?

The following subject presents the curious spectacle of
movement commenced by the will and terminating in a
spasm, by which example will be ended the series of idiocy
allied to the varieties of paralysis :

Obs. XLI. — A stately, fine-headed, open-faced boy of
twelve, that nobody would judge idiotic at first sight ;
but he never behaved like other children. His forward-
ness was vacillating ; his brightness issued from quick
and accidental perception, not from sure understanding.
Though he speaks well and rather fast, he will often,
instead of answering, repeat the last sentence of what is

APPENDIX. 399

told him, in an awkward and unmeaning manner. (See
Obs. XLIII.) He reads some and can count a little, but
he progresses more slowly than other pupils considered
lower than he ; being decidedly an amiable boy, but an
impervious scholar. However, the test of his infirmity
appears more manifestly when his muscles are called to
eystematic exertion. Then, and particularly in the large
movements of totality, as in throwing with energy an
arm up or a leg forward, F. begins these movements as
other childi'en of his group do ; but in the course of their
execution these movements of his become disordered and
tei'minate in a kind of spasm, which makes the limb de-
viate from its ideal point of destination. It is. evident
that his will, which directed the beginning of the move-
ment, ceased at a certain stage to direct it ; wherefrom it
commenced regularly and ended spasmodically.

If there could be any doubt as to the paralytic nature
of the affection, to dispel it, it would suffice to see how
the spine seemed convulsed at the time the disorder of
the limb begins. Moreover, a case oi pardhfsis soriba-
rum, which occurred in our practice, makes it surer by
analogy. It happened after an immoderate use of the
pen ; the hand beginning to write a few words and sud-
denly the thumb giving way, unable any farther to
manage the pen. "With the exception that this impotence
takes place in the middle of a series of repeated move-
ments of a small organ, instead of in the course of a
single, ample movement of totality, we do not see any
essential difference in the two affections. Of course they
do not come from the same origin.; but do all the forms

400 IDIOCY.

of paralysis do so? . ... As the question stands, F. is
one of those children whose keeping will more than
repaj' paltry expenses, provided the study of their in-
firmity begins early, continues though life and does not
stop after death.

Of idiocy with surdi-mutity, we have seen incidentally
two cases in Obs. XXXIII., whose object was mostly to
present idiocy in combination with chorea. Here we will
compare two cases of surdi-mutity, leaving in the shade
any other symptom, even chorea in one of them, to its turn.

Obs. XLII. — T. had fits when young, was wild and
thieving with the boys when brought to the Syracuse
Asylum. He was almost absolutely deaf and entirely
mute ; by which expression we mean the double absence
of the sounds producing human voice and of the articula-
tion which typifies the speech. He was choreic from
birth, we suspect ; could not fix his eyes, nor keep the sa-
liva from streaming from his open mouth on his red and
sore chin ; he fed himself imperfectly ; did not dress; did
not soil his clothes or bed, but was entirely repulsive and
disorderly otherwise. His idiotism precluded his admis-
sion into the school for deaf mutes, though he was one of
them ; but happily, surdi-mutity was not considered a
sufficient cause to refuse him admission among the idiots,
for he was one of them also, by double reflex action on the
brain of the privation of one mode of perceiving through
the ear owing to his deafness ; and likely owing to the
uncertainty of his mode of perceiving through the touch,
owing to chorea : double cause of exclusion, besides
idiocy, from the common school.

APPENDIX. _ 401

However, his education began with the teaching of
things through the eyes and through the tact ; from which
he passed to the manual alphabet and writing. His pro-
gress was slow, but followed the improvement of the stea-
diness of his nerves, acquired in the practice of special
gymnastics : chorea disappeared steadily. Not only did
he not lose the little of hearing he had when coming in
contact with idiots ; but great pains were taken to keep
up the exercise of that function ; and the result of this
care was, that instead of remaining absolutely mute, he
began to talk a little. He was so much improved in in-
telligence and demeanor at the end of three years, that
being considered out of idiocy, and yet unable, on account
of his surdity, to be taught in the public school, he was
received in the deaf mute institution.

There, in ten years of training, he received a good edu-
cation and was apprenticed to two trades, book-binding
and harness-making. But, however beneficial may have
been to him in every other respect the present mode of
teaching the deaf mutes, it made his ear fall, by abso-
lute disuse to sounds, into absolute deafness, and his
unexercised voice into absolute mutism. The school for
idiots had done better in this respect.

Nevertheless, he is now upon his own hook in this
world, and has earned his living since two years. In March,
1865 (when we were just studying these childi-en), a fine
stout young man came into the New York State Institution
with his slate under his arra ; it was T. An exercised look
only could yet detect in his open manner the twitch of
chorea. He spent a few days there, enjoying the com-

402 IDIOCY.

pany of a few of hia old schoolmates and his school-mis-
tress, behaved with propriety, showed a sense of grati-
tude, and a sound judgment in general matters. Not find-
ing employment in the city, he returned to Albany ;
but it was evident that he would have liked to remain
near the place where he had his fairest childhood recol-
lections.

A. presents quite a similar case with a somewhat differ-
ent issue. Not quite so deaf, nor so absolutely mute as
F., he would not hear, nor speak to any purpose. Incapa-
ble of being taught in the public school on account of his
mutism, -or admitted in the deaf mute school on account
of his idiocy, though it was superficial, his double infirmity
was harbored in the school for idiots. But there, instead
of being favored, these infirmities were combated. He
could hear a little, and was made to hear better ; he could
say a few words, and he was made to use language, read
aloud, etc., if not like everybody, at least enough for his
own use and the ordinary interchange of ideas. This did
not interfere, but on the contrary tallied with his other
progress ; idiocy and mutism were dispelled together.
But the desire of connecting and comparing the issue of
these two cases must not make us substitute our own nar-
rative for the graphic account given of the education of
A. in Dr. H. B. "Wilbur's last report (1866).

" A boy of eight years old came to the asylum in
1856, tall of his age and good-looking, but partially
deaf. This deafness was increased by a disease of the
perceptive ear. Thus the ordinary sounds of common life,
full of meaning to the healthy ear, made a faint im-

APPPENDIX. 403

pression upon his. And through some defect in the brain
itself, or in the nerves communicating between the ear and
the brain, he had not learned to interpret the sounds of the
human voice into a living language. He spoke but a few
words, and those he had learned by imitating the motions
of the lips. He was thus practically cut off from learning
orally. He had been at a common school, but without
learning anything, and had suffered many annoyances from
other children, on account of his infirmity, though of an
exceedingly amiable disposition himself. The efforts of
instraction were directed, not to communicating with him
through the eye, substituting that channel of ideas for the
obstructed one through the ear, but to removing the ob-
structions in the latter.

" This was done by submitting the organ of audition to
a great variety of special gymnastics. He was exposed to
the alternate influence of loud, distinct, and contrasting
sounds ; and his attention was called to the organ of the
hearing in every possible way. Simultaneously with these
exercises the effort was made to improve , his speech by a
vocal drill ; the word-method of teaching reading was em-
ployed simultaneously. Taking advantage of the activity
of his sight, caused by the former inactivity of his hearing,
considerable pains were taken to teach him drawing and
writing. In the former he became so proficient, manifest-
ing not only great accuracy in copying, but considerable
skill in design, that it determined in the selection of a
trade for him. He left the asylum to learn the trade of a
house and sign painter, after acquiring in it a simple ele-
mentary education. He was always amiable ; but at the

404 IDIOCY.

last of his residence, in his intercourse with his teachers
and the members of his own family, he manifested even
delicacy of feeling. During his last two years in the Insti-
tution he became so capable in the work of the farm and
garden, that he was trusted to do almost anything there
was to do, without supervision. By a recent communi-
cation with his employer, it is learned that he shows great
industry and aptitude in his new occupation, and that he
is able to render valuable service."

The opposite results obtained in the cases of those
young men, relatively to hearing and speaking, in the
school for deaf mutes and in the institution for idiots,
show with strong contrast the difference between the
two methods of teaching such pupils : the pantomimic
method, which cultivates only the sight, and allows even
a partial hearing to die away in uaelessness ; and the phy-
siological method, which develops an imperfect function,
or substitutes the perception through the touch to that
through the ear when it has become oblitera,ted.

Obs. XLIII. — Blind Tom is another example of isola-
tion of the mind (superficial idiocy), produced by the
privation of a whole series of means of communication
with the external world. For, though he is rather micro-
cephalous, few of his symptoms point towards idiocy" of
centripetal origin.

He is the fourteenth child of a father who had eighteen
children, all healthy and intelligent, except one of the
last, and himself the idiotic genius. He is well built, his
head is harmonious in its small, oblong, side-flattened
ehape. His fingers are remarkably thin, considering the

APPENDIX. 405

constant use he makes of them on his instrument. He is
from birth nearly absolutely blind, not seeing enough
to dii'ect his walk. He appears first, in his unwritten
legend, at the age of fifteen months, standing up by sup-
porting his hands on the knees of his young master, and
following with the moveraents of his body the modula-
tions of the flute with which the lad was whiling away
the blank hours of a Georgia plantation. Till five or six
years old he could not speak, scarce walk, and gave no
other sign of intelligence than this everlasting thirst for
music. At four years already, if taken out from the
corner where he lay dejected, and seated at the piano, he
would play beautiful tunes; his little hands having
already taken possession of the keys, and his wonder
ful ear of any combination of notes they had once heard.

People flocked for miles to hear him, till the South-
ern insurrection put a stop to his success. As soon as
cannon ceased to be the orchestra, Tom was brought
Forth and exhibited by his ex-raaster, whose kind and
.gentlemanly manners cannot keep off the remark that he
likely makes more by Tom than Tom would by him.

He is led by the hand or sleeve before an audience,
and begins by presenting himself in the third person, and
in a few words thrown away, rather than spoken, saying,
" Blind Tom wilUplay this or that piece for you," etc., after
which he begins the piano. His execution is sometimes
sweet, oftener of an unknown force, which manifestly
proceeds from powers higher up than his wrist. When he
sends certain clangorous agonies his shoulder-blades bear
as it were directly on the keys, his whole frame vibrates

406 IDIOCY.

with the instrument. Tom seems to savor the following
applause : —

If some person of the company is invited to play a new
tune that the sable artist will have to repeat, he being
used to it, understands what is the matter, and shows his
satisfaction by his countenance, a laughing, stooping, with
various rubbings of the hand, alternating with an increase
of the sideway swinging of his body, and some uncouth
smiles. As soon as the new tune begins, Tom takes some
ludicrous posture, expressive of listening, but soon lowering
his body and raising on one leg, so that both are perfectly
horizontal, and supported upon the other leg, representing
the letter T, he moves upon that improvised axis like the
pirouette dancer, but indefinitely. These long gyrations
are interrupted by other spells of motionless listening,
with or without change of posture, or persevered in and
ornamented with spasmodic movements of the hands ;
this is his studying posture. When the stranger is
through, Tom stops, seats himself at the piano, and repro-
duces the musical idea perfectly, if the piece was entirely
new to him ; but reproduces tune for tune, note for note,
if he only heard it previously two or three times — and
yet that child is idiotic for any other purpose ; in the pri-
vacy of home as in public, he can accomplish nothing but
gyrations and melodies ; that he does to his heart's content.

Tom is evidently improving in his mind since he is
thrown into companies. Now the question arises — If he
can be elevated above his idiotic condition, will he, at the
same time that he gains so many new perceptions, lose the
acuteness of his musical sense ; exchanging, if we may

APPENDIX. 407

SO express our idea of a mental revolution, his artistic
genius against an even general common sense ? Mangio-
mel lost all his mathematical power, which was wonder-
ful, and Kaspar Hauser his memory, which was vivid, in
the process of gaining the ordinary acquirements deve-
loped in children at an earlier period. Is the loss of the
special gift the rule when education equally embarrasses
all the modes of activity ? or does forcing in education
require a more rigid conformity to physiological laws than
was likely used in these two cases ? A few more subjects,
nicely treated and followed up, will settle that question,
important to the whole race.

Obs. XLIV. — In the three preceding cases we have
seen the result on the intellect proper of the privation
of one series of perceptions, or isolation through tlje ab-
sence of one sense. In the following we are admitted
to witness the effects on a normal intellect, and sound
senses also, of artificial isolation produced by life-long
confinement and sequestration, and of the cessation of
isolation by sudden opening of social intercourse. Kas-
par Hauser was the subject of that crime and the subse-
quent experiment. From his birth, in 1812, to his release,
in 1828, he appears to have been shut up in a dark place
with the floor for a seat, and food brought him always by
the same silent figure. His body was stout and sym-
metrical ; the soles of his feet without horny skin, and as
soft as his useless hands, were covered by blood-blisters,
witnesses to his first attempt at walking ; he evidently had
lived most of his time squatting, and for a long time after
could not go up and down stairs without assistance. His

408 IDIOCY.

expresaion was "brutish," says his historian, his look
" staring ;" he could see better in the dark than by the
sunlight, which soon caused some ill-described chronic
inflammation of his eyes. To change his clothing, he was
made insensible by a beverage that he hated, and recog-
nised since as laudanum. But sociability is so imperative
that the brute who kept him could not help breaking his
isolation in two points ; first by speaking two words that
Kaspar understood, man and ross, and a dozen others
that he could repeat without affixing to them any mean-
ing ; second, by leaving him the company of two wooden
horses (ross), with which he partook his food and drink,
thereby breaking in no inconsiderable manner the empty
circle in which his life was shut up : beyond, all was
silence, emptiness, and darkness. Thus brought up, his
heart had, it is true, found something to love, but his
mind was an absolute blank ; his senses in relation to
appetites exquisite, to intellectual perceptions not yet
born ; water was his delight, and bread his favorite food.
He detected with horror any particle of infused alcoholic
food or fermented liquor, or of animal victuals surrepti-
tiously offered to him ; and the smell of flowers or the
approaches to a field of tobacco gave him the fever. On
the other hand, he did not heed noises nor take notice of
the tolling of bells for several days ; but once audi-
tion awakened, he soon listened ; and some weeks later,
at the sound of music, he listened for the first time in the
attitude of a statue ; his «ars and eyes seemed to follow the
movements of the sounds as they receded ; and after they
had long ceased to be audible when he still continued

APPENDIX. 409

immovably fixed in a listening posture. At first, he was
sitting on the floor by the side of his horses, ornamenting
them with ribbons, strings, bits of colored paper, coins, bells,
and spangles, driving them forward and backward with-
out moving himself, ofiering them of his bread and water.
As he never drank water without offering some to his
horses, one of them, made of plaster, had his mouth very
soon softened and altered. He felt very sorry for it, and,
upon observation, ceased to water this horse. Another
time he was quite inconsolable when somebody drove a
nail into one of his horses. " Not a spark of religion,
not the smallest particle of any dogmatic system was to
be found in his sonl," says his biographer. Nevertheless,

" though without dogmatic system, he became the adopted
child of the city of Nuremberg, which supplied him with
a teacher, Prof. Daumer, who took him home and began
his education. The torpor of his intellect made soon
room for a great activity ; he learned everything taught
him, transferred to living horses his love for wooden ones,
and became the most elegant rider. " Screwed into the
common form of school education," says Van Demerbach,
" his mind suffered as it were its second imprisonment.
As formerly the walls of his dungeon, so now the walls
of the school-room excluded him from nature and from

life." He made so rapid progress that a witness foretold

that he would certainly " die of nervous fever or be soon
visited with some attack of insanity or idiocy." Indeed,
he soon lost his memory, became childish, melancholy,

dejected, enfeebled with morbid elevation of nervous

sensibility ; Prof. Daumer's attempt was a failure..

26

410 IDIOCY.

The history of Kaspar, that we do not pretend to g:
here, teaches, among other lessons —

1. That idiocy is really isolation, as the Greeks had

2. It may be produced artificially.

3. Isolation is so unnatural to man that he will g:
life to inanimate things and associate his life to the
sooner than submit to it.

4. It may be aggravated at will by dereliction, and
aggravated by every day of non-treatment.

5. Isolation acts on the hemispheres as well as on i
sensorial apparatus.

6. The awakening of the peripheral apparatus awaki
the central one.

7. The awakening of backward functions requi
great care, lest the organs unused to activity lose th
power and be exhausted.

• 8. "What an idiot (born or made up by crime) must f
learn for several years, is what baby learned in his fi
months.

9. Physiological teaching alone can fill up the j
produced by idiocy proper, and years of isolation.

"We now meet with the painful complication of idi^
with incipient or threatening insanity.

Obs. XLY. — Y. was taken with convulsions w]
twelve months old ; had them very severely for a w€
and milder for a year or so. A brother of his had si
lar attacks, which left no bad impression; Y. was not
happy. His look is strange and attractive, on accoun
a kind of set regularity in his features. He walks, mi
use his hands, but hardly ever does it ; and can speak,

APPENDIX. 411

does not, unless at rare and unexpected intervals. He
only begins sometimes to repeat syllables after his mas-
ter, in individual, never in group-teaching. He does not
answer questions, and scarcely says more than a word at
a time unless overcome by some strong impression,
when sentences will flow from his mouth in great abun-
dance ; so it happened that crossing the Hudson River,
at Albany, he spoke fluently for several minutes, and shut
his thin lips again for a long while. This singularity is
no symptom of idiocy. In other respects, such as inca-
pacity of willed movements, of attention, of perception,
etc., Y. is so manifestly idiotic that we cannot but
rank him among those who have become such from some
constitutional affections produced or developed during
lactation or even sooner; without overlooking the symp-
toms which, like voluntary silence or muteness, and invol-
untary speech, point towards incipient insanity. As an
. idiot, his progress is small, but he is young, and it re-
mains to be seen what a methodical training can do for
his double affection.

The following observation shall present the same com-
plication in its threatening stage, though apparently more
amenable to education.

Obs. XLYI. — 0.,. nine years old, as seen in his family,
presented the following appearance at the end of 1864.
Head without noticeable irregularity, body well formed
as well as the limbs and extremities. ISlo impediment in
his movemei^ts ; rather turbulent and restless. He does
a few things, as cleaning the hearth when bidden ; or
driving nails into a board, without object but to amuse

412 IDIOCY.

himself. He talks unreflectively, and to all appearance
unconsciously most of the time ; cannot answer at all,
but instead repeats mechanically the last word or sylla-
ble of the question he heard fugitively. His eyes seem
quick catchers of things and persons, but as peradven-
ture or unintentionally ; all told, he has good muscular
and sensorial organs, but little or no control over them,
particularly pver the latter. He knows several letters,
and can imitate a little ; remembers a gi-eat deal, and par-
ticularly keeps as soon as caught the correlation of names
to faces. Otherwise, he is rather useless to himself and
others.

A few months later C, at our suggestion, entered the
asylum of Syracuse. Seen there after eight months'of
treatment, he appeared as follows : A good deal more
fleshy, steadied in his manners, extremely obedient in the
midst of an apparent absence of mind ; eyes easily fixed,
though more devoid than formerly of that lustre which
bespeaks the look; his movements, and particularly
those dependent on the use of the hand, , have become
very satisfactory ; everything feasible by imitation in
school and gymnasium is done handsomely ; everything
acquirable by memory alone retained. For instance, a
kind but unmeaning servant had told him the names of
all the Presidents, from Washington down, and he lets,
them come orderly and correctly from his lips as if he
knew what he said, whereas, if asked what he likes best
to do, his answer shall be, if he makes aij,y, "To do."
Beeides, his wonderful memory for names extends to
faces and to their relations. In a few days he knew by

APPENDIX. 413

name all the inmates of the Institution, about two hun-
dred in number, and he might learn many more without
giving evidence of any intellectual improvement.

Three facts dominate his training, and seem to counter-
act the remarkable progress otherwise secured by his
training, so far. His face has not grown more intelli-
gent ; his talk is hardly more willed and rational ; and
his answers are yet not much, more than echoes of the
final of the question he catches. Little doubt may be
entertained that his tendency is towards insanity ; but his
education is hardly begun, and a happy turn may take
place.

Obs. XLVII. — Superficial Idiocy — Almost Normal
Grmiium — No Complication. — ^Emma N., aged six and
a half years, of a well-balanced temperament, except the
nervous disorders described below ; she has neither disease
nor infirmity. Her cranium is elongated, of good propor-
tions, but anteriorly more narrow on the right tluiji on thu
left side ; a lateral depression above the orbital arch ; ver-
tical bulging from the root of the nose up to the frontal
eminences, which are not marked. Facial configuration
regular ; harmonious features in a delicate and correct
oval — thus no possible relation between the skall and
face. The trunk and extremities are of perfect propor-
tions. Emma is a beautiful child, with blue eyes and
long blonde tresses ; but the posture is bent, the head a
little inclined to the left, the uniform extremities crossed
and rubbing each other, the upper agitated, more espe-
cially the hands, the slender and flexible fingers of which
are almost constantly interlaced in the most fantastic

414 IDIOCY.

manner. The organs of speech are well conformed, save
a slight elevation of the palatine arch ; but the tongue,
constantly agitated, imitates with its point a corkscrew
movement. The chest, the vertebral column, and the
abdomen are sound.

Apart from some general prostration, Emma is con-
stantly in action ; even seated, her hands seek each other,
are rubbed, the fingers are agitated, are crossed, the. feet
also crossed more involuntarily ; the entire nervous sys-
tem seems irritable, without our being able to assign a
centre to it, either in the cerebrum, the medulla oblon-
gata or the ganglionic masses. It might rather be sup-
posable, from the physiological symptoms to be described,
that there exists a peculiar disorder of the motor and
sensitive nerves.

Emma weeps, sings, or cries often, without other
motive than the excess of nervous sensibility which agi-
tates her. Light, certain kinds in particular, electricity,
and odors, visibly increase the manifestations of her
nervous state. In this child the disorders of muscular
irritability and of nervous sensibility appear almost paral-
lel. Thus, the motor and sensitive apparatuses are well
conformed externally ; in this respect there is no inequality
between the two sides of the body ; but the sphincters
rarely obey the will. The movements are quite extensive,
but sudden ; almost all involuntary, disordered, frequently
spasmodic, and accompanied by contractions of the face,
by cries, tears, and long-continued nervous laughter ; they
(the movements) are never mechanical. The light and
uneven walk is rather awkward than swinging ; station is

APPENDIX. 415

impossible ; and the ascent and descent of stairs are only
practicable by means of bannisters, slowly, and by plac-
ing both feet on each step. Emma neither runs nor
jumps, and the extreme sensibility of her feet does not
allow her to keep them long on the earth ; she could bet-
ter climb.

Her hands seize suddenly and badly, and let go with
difficulty that which they hold ; they can neither throw
nor fling, nor receive a body, and are incapable of the
most usual manoeuvres, as dressing, lacing, tyiiig, cutting,
eating alone, etc.

Ooincidently with these incapacities of motor appara-
tuses, the tact is, upon all surfaces, and especially on the
hands and feet, of an extreme sensibility ; the appetence
for dishes and drinks of high flavor well-marked, the search
for penetrating odors assiduous, and the satisfaction of this
desire is followed, when carried to excess, by aggravated
irritability, then by atony, and lastly by a short, agitated
sleep.

The hearing is delicate but inattentive, and seeks
music; the look is uncertain and cannot be fixed; the
pupil is small, and the limiting line of the blue iris is not
distinct. The voice is strong, but speech is almost absent,
and consists only of a dozen appellations, aajpapa, dress,
shoes, and so confused that only the circumstances attend-
ing their emission can indicate their meaning.

The appetite is little developed, thirst ^erj urgent,
eyerything liquid and solid badly, ingested. Mastication
is nearly absent, constipation habitual, stools distant, at
times involuntary, as before stated. Besides, the nasal

416 IDIOCY.

secretion is null ; .tears are, without apparent cause, fre-
quent ; the head has no peculiar odor. The pulse is very
small and soft ; respiration is good.

Emma is capable of n'o attention, unless at rare inter-
vals, for that which concerns her dress ; for she has the
sense of toilet. She perceives but indistinctly by the
senses, and almost nothing by speech. Incapable of
rational comparison, of judgment, of reflection, of deduc-
tion, she is given up to all sorts of fancies provoked in her
by circumstances of place and things which surround
her; hence an apparent imagination, whose sallies and
eccentricities at first attract, but in which we soon per-
ceive that circumstances more than invention proper
take effect. Limited to acquirements immediately
necessary, or which flatter her vanity, she only notices a
flower to smell it, to place it in her belt or her hat ; and
she has no knowledge of what color, form, letters, figures
and quantities, etc., are. As to time, she only knows the
return of Sunday, which always brings back her finest
clothes ; she is fond of music, but without marked excess,
and her irritability has thereby increased.

Emma fears and knows no danger ; she could not live
a moment without an accident overtaking her. Far from
being orderly and from seeking those mechanical symme-
tries, so many curious examples of which are furnished by
profound idiocy, she is pleased by disorder, by amassing,
by quaint combinations of objects, and at their destruc-
tion. ■ Although she strikes, every instant, her nurse, her
mother, and even myself, I notice that without being good,
she is compassionate, and I am of opinion tliat her aggres-

APPENDIX. 417

siveness, her violence towards persons, are due alone to the
foolish aflfection which has aggravated her condition.
What confirms this opinion is thatf understanding the right
and wrong of certain actions, she has no comprehension
of obedience, and is pleased at violent resistance : o'ther-
wise gay, grateful, affectionate, seeking for and returning
caresses, full of vanity, coquette, credulous, and little imi-
tative. Emma is spontaneous, but her spontaneities tend
towards disordered acts, and her willing is all instinctive
or negative. Besides, Emma seeks light and noise, the
crowd, by the latter of which she wishes to be admired,
but without communicating with anybody. She used to
pass to and fro through the crowds in 'the drawing-rooms
like a little queen not deigning to look upon her subjects
and receive their homage.

f., I have known of no hereditary disease in the family ;
her father was robust and exceedingly intelligent ; her
mother, very nervous, a fashionable woman, capricious,
quaint, charming, had had before her several strong and
well-organized children ; Emma, the last, had been carried
in utero under painful circumstances ; born in Paris,
nursed in the family, no other cause for her condition was
blamed except the great anxieties her mother had expe^
rienced about the sixth month of gestation. Her earlier
years had passed without serious illness ; she had main-
tained a marked degree of health, followed distantly by
the physiological and psychological progress of which I
have- spoken.

Such was Emma, when 1 was requested to take the
direction of her treatment. There was no one in the

418 IDIOCY.

family having leisure to devote sufficient time to her, and
we were fortunate enough to find at once, in the person
of an aged lady, a devol^d nurse

It was evident that I had to deal with an agitated sub-
ject, and that her incapacities of functions and attitudes
depended almost exclusively upon this nervous agitation.

Therefore, I did not think it desirable to insist, at first,
upon a great fixedness of the look, a perfect standing or
even sitting immobility, until a proper regimen had been
followed for a time. No more coflfee, no matter how
weak ; no more liquor or tonic wine ; some water red-
dened with wine, white meats in small quantities, green
vegetables, bread (Emma hardly ate any), no farinaceous
substances. Two daily walks, avoiding isolation during
the hot season, augmentation of solid, and gradual dimi-
nution of liquid food, and an abundant use of water exter-
nally ; such was, save a few details, the course which
preceded the various gymnastics. As to the exercises, I
began by seated immobility, a little regular walking, and
two sorts of mechanical contacts, both nearly carried to
excess ; I mean the swing which carries the feet against
a spring-board, and the balancing-pole whose rapid pas-
sage from the hands of the gymnast to those of the pupil
is, among other objects, calculated to blunt a sickly sen-
sibility. The attention commanded by this sort of play-
thing, rendered rough and rapid at will, compelled Emma
to pay some attention through the eye to the casualties
incumbent upon the retention of it.

My attention had been early attracted by the excessive
disorders of the look. I soon remarked that these were

APPENDIX, 419

twofold ; one that might be called normal, the other re-
sulting from circumstances. Ordinarily, the look was
vague, slightly diverging upwards to the right side ; but
at other times it was so wandering, without fixed direc-
tion, that she then had no use of it, and only saw acciden-
tally. Anxious about these variations, I made inquiries,
and learned that my pupil had been immersed in floods
of light, visitors and music, at- late evening parties. By
cutting off these causes of excitement, the eyes resumed
their habitual appearance till their function could be im-
proved. Thi's was effected by the use of various gymnas-
tics to vsfhich this sense was submitted. At first, and for
the slightest contention and trial in looking straight at an
object or at a distance, the eyes were watering profusely ;
it was melancholy and attractive to see rolling without
anger nor sorrow, these liquid pearls which were no tears.
At the same time that, in the course of our ocular exer-
cises, this secretion diminished, that of the nasal mucus,
absent before, made its appearance. Even if we cannot
find the reason of such phenomena they ought to be
recorded, if only at first to present them in opposition to
the following observation. 1 have seen idiots having
constantly a thick and abundant nasal mucus, who wept
not for sorrow, anger, nor pain ; the only child of this sort
that came under my care had, finally, these two secretions
restored to their normal state.

In Emma, the moment at which these secretions were
inversely regularized was also that of her intellectual
start. After the sight could be used methodically to dis-
criminate the objects accepted as sensorial symbols of

420 IDIOCY.

ideas, colors, forms, letters, drawing, memory, exercise
of prevision, were acquired to some extent in less than a
year. During those twelve months )ier head was sensi-
bly developed in bulk, but not harmonized ; her face had
a more placid expression, and her mouth in particular
could be seen quiet for hours. Her form had become ei-ect
and well arched ; her limbs and extremities were strength-
ened, the hand having lost its incessant vagary, and the
foot having gained a solid stand on a smooth floor, not
yet on the pavement ; the whole dynamic being once reno-
vated, the physiological and intellectual being seemed
restored. Emma was, according to the current expres-
sion of the family, transfigured. Her activity, always
above the average, was expended in a variety of exer-
cises ; her nervous system, regulated in its sensitive and
motor moods, did not allo.w tears, cries, spasmodic or
disordered movements ; carefully isolated from electric
and scented atmospheres, systematically exposed to cold
during long trainings, she was henceforth capable of
keeping herself quiet either in the standing or in the sit-
ting posture ; she could walk straight without any more
hesitation in her gait ; go up and down stairs without
support ; run some, and even jump, of which but lately
she was so much afi'aid. Her superior limbs adapted
themselves to all muscular exercises customary to ordi-
nary children of her age, but they remained quite inca-
pacitated for the little labors which demand, next to an
attentive immobility of the whole body, an alert and
sedulously repeated movement of the hand alone. She
took great fancy to dressing herself, and particularly to

APPENDIX. 421

comb her fair tresses ; though incapable in so doing even
to satisfy her own taste. Grracious and petulant in her
movements, manners, and even broken language, which
was a spontaneous compromise between her former
mutism and the strict emission of syllables, material of
her daily lessons ; using her eyes more directly ; shed-
ding no more organic tears ; eating more food and less
sweetmeats ; drinking less ; digesting better ; clean day
and night ; and having turned her former distant moods
into quite a coquettish style. Her comprehension had
gained more than her attention ; her imagination was
more impressive than her judgment appropriate ; spoiled
child in the innocent and superficial sense of the word,
she was entering into the condition of a young lady with
all the unrefrained capiices of a young miss. She was
possessed, thanks to her excellent lady teacher, of nearly
all the simple and positive notions acquirable through
the senses, and which are the primary elements of ideas ;
but she had no sooner glanced at, than she penetrated
them ; so that her thoughts issued rather at hap-hazard
and without the substantial body given them by observa-
tion ; she had, evidently, besides the reflective faculty,
that one called by Gh. Fourrier la Papillonne. Thus
grown up, gay, laughing, petting and petted, vain, heed-
less, often whimsical, always capricious, too little obsti-
nate to be ca,lled stubborn, and too light-headed to realize
any good, she was pitied, and admired even, when spy-
ing the eflfect of her own graces either on the parasites
or friends of the family, or upon herself in a glass. At
this point, and being rich, she was deemed intelligent

422 IDIOCY.

enough Bince she could please ; and her good teacher was
dismissed, though she might have done much more for
the charming girl.

Obs, XLVIII. — 8v{perfiQial Idiocy — Fine Head — iVb
complicaUon. — ^Robert S., set. five, sanguine temperament,
robust, healthy, without accessory disease or infirmity;
well-shaped cranium, face rosy, stout, inexpressive unless
animated by anger; just proportion between the size of
the cranium and that of the face, as well as between the
body and limbs ; good muscular development, large and
convex thorax, spine stout, abdomen normal, organs of
speech and generation harmonious ; bodily habits natural,
save a nervous constriction of the fist. His general acti-
vity is above the average, but soon exhausted, as appears
by one, at least, daily prostration easily repaired by an
irresistible and profound sleep. This great activity could
not be applied to anything, even to dressing himself.

In this subject the motor apparatus is endowed with
great activity. Voluntary, involuntary, coordinate, and
spasmodic movements ; all the modes of myotility, except
the automatic and mechanical, are represented in this
type of disordered and nearly indefatigable petulance.
He has little swinging in his walk, goes up and down
stairs as regularly as other children of his age, does not
run or jump regularly yet. Though his articular flexions
are easy, he executes very indifferently and unequally the
acts of prehension, reception, sending, or letting go ; but
no difficulty will be met in teaching that. He does 'not
dress nor eat alone, but his soup, with which he soils his
garments. Indeed, his hands serve him yet but to hold a

APPENDIX. 423

stick or any other object he may use to Btrike anything'
or anybody coming across his way.

In this subject the nervous centres do not give evidence
of any lesion ; but his modes of perception are variously
a£Pected. He does not cry, laugh, sing, buzz involuntarily,
as is more or less the case in profound idiocy ; heat and
electricity soon overpower him, otherwise his nerves
might be said to be rather dull. His tact has no delicacy,
his smell is dull — loving only strong scents, whether good
or bad ; the look is rigid, but eluding, and the aiiditory
function is so null that he was thought to be deaf; and
as he was not able to emit a syllable, his mutism was
attributed to surdity. This was not only a family and
nursery prejudice, but a diagnosis arrived at by several
physicians, one of them advising me of the fact.

His appetite is good, digestion normal, save some cos-
tiveness unusual in children ; he slobbers only when in a
passion ; perspires a good deal — mostly from the head.
His sleep is long, deep, and imperious. He must sleep
in the daytime, after a night's rest of ten or fourteen
hours. Once he began this daily sleep in a carriage, and
continued it without interruption, though a servant took
him from the cushions to a chair in a room at a distance,
his siesta looking like catalepsy. The pulse is full, the
respiration large and easy.

As he does not listen, and looks but seldom, he may
be said void of attention. When anything is wanted of
him, they take him by the arm to the thing to be done,
and he cannot offer much resistance, for all that is required
from him is that he should take some pleasure, candy, or

4:24 IDIOCY.

repast, easy obedience against which the violent temper
of Robert protests once in a while. Otherwise he does
not care, concern himself, nor inquire for anything ; sur-
rounded with servants, he has not the time to form a wish 5
all his lifetime is consumed in long naps, eating, nibbling
sweetmeats, striking the pieces of furniture, romping and
shouting ; he is kissed, combed, washed, walked with per-
fect indifference on his part, or if tired of it he escapes
these attentions with a cry or a struggle. The memory
that he seems to possess of persons does not serve him
to desire and look for them ; and that of things seems
exclusively attached to the pleasure they afford. He is
certainly idiotic, but without any of the symptoms which
characterize an affection of the brain proper. In this
respect the conclusion of my study of Robert was, that his
case was misunderstood ; and continuing to observe him,
I soon acquired two certitudes, and conceived a doubt
upon which rested my practice. The first certainty, was
that the disorders of myotility which looked so grave, were
but exuberant expressions of a constitution mostly organ-
ized for action, and which called for the employment of
the means calculated to reduce them to harmony and
efficiency. There were no anormal movements, but exu-
berance easily restrainable into coordinate activity. The
second certainty was that the nervous apparatuses, in par-
ticular those of vision and touch, offered incapacities
rather than disorders; thus, he rarely looked, but when he
did, it was not badly, etc. The object of my doubt was
about the condition of the ear. Nothing seemed to me
more suspicious than that would-be organic infirmity in

APPENDIX. 425

Robert. I liad already met with some of those deaf who
do not listen, and wlio could hear if they would or could
be taught to listen ; Itard had known several such before
me, and the Savage of the Aveyron was one of them, since,
indifferent to the report of a fire-arm, hp would turn his
head quickly at the fall of a nut on the floor. And though
analogies are not proofs, I had some other reasons to suspect
the supposed orgauic'origin of the incapacity of my pupil.
Thus his external ear was perfectly built ; he seemed to
have derived a knowledge of certain things by the use of
hearing, since his imperfect touch and sight could not
give any idea of them ; and besides I had a strong
impression that, at the noise of the carriage entering the
yard, he had made a movement indicating his perception
of it. To make sure of it, I ordered his own carriage
(a plaything of large dimensions), to be introduced in the
parlor where he was, and I saw that without turning his
head, he, informed by the rumbling on the floor, gave a
half look in that direction to make sure that his ear had
not deceived him. It was enough to be sure that with
proper gymnastics I could conquer that incapacity, mis-
taken for an infirmity.

At the end of these observations I concluded that it
would be proper to neglect at first the disorder of move-
ment, contrarily to the usual course ; and to challenge the
sensorial incapacities in an order inverse to their gravity ;
accordingly, instead of losing several months in muscular
exercises easy enough to come to at any time, I provoked
the sensibility of the touch, of the smell, and of the look,

and in two montlis I succeeded in giving voluntary per-

27

426 IDIOCY.

ceptions to the audition. Concurrently I exercised the
organs of voice and articulation by extensive miinic ; the
speech came forth, and with it tlie teaching of drawing
letters ; counting began, everything followed the regula-
tion of the senses like corollaries ; the bar had fallen which
separated Robert from the outer world ; not only he heard,
but listened ; not only he saw, but he looked ; his education
had become feasible through these new means, and by the
use of Physiological training he learned more in six months
than ordinary children generally do in two years.

I do not mean to say that at this period he had become
equal in every respect to the children of his age ; not yet.
His training had taken him out of superficial idiocy, and
made him capable of being educated by the ordinary pro-
cesses, except in two points, the speech and the coordinate
movements which require more special education. —
{Translation as above.)

The following cases represent self-abuse preparing the
way to idiocy or imbecility.

Obs. XLIX. — S., 10 years old, pale and slender, but
well built, with thin but correct extremities, skin parch-
ment-like, eyes dull and deep-set, lips thin and pale,
cheeks stiff and adherent to the bone, head undersized,
though well proportioned, fie reads with pleasure, and
would do it all the time, though he does not remember
anything of it ; hence he does not improve. With little
perception, no comprehension, he is cunning, tricky,
aggressive ; if he does not do more mischief, it is
owing to the perfect regulations and quiet company
which surround him. The bad habits which arrested his

APPENDIX. 427

development began very early in life, earlier indeed than
it is generally supposed possible; and on their doubt-
ful continuance or aggravation shall depend his partial
regeneration or absolute degradation.

Obs. L. — Sh., became a victim to the same habit
later in life. He was at 12 a good pupil in a college,
when he was taken very ill with, what is said, menin-
gitis, after which he was found a prey to the monomania
of self-destruction. From thence he forgot his Latin, etc.,
could not learn anything new, presented a dejected coun-
. tenance, an emaciated face with stupid features, an under-
erratic look, and a hanging of the lower maxilla. Never-
theless, there is yet a good deal of the gentleman in
his neatness, and of the scholar in his incessant reading
and writing to no purpose nor benefit; he has made
himself the. mere shell of a young man.

Obs. LI. — Imiecility — Chronic Cause. — Louis B., ao-ed
14 years, very tall and thin of his age, of a lymphatic
temperament, without accessory infirmities ; his cranium
was quite well conformed, excepting the forehead, the
prominence of which is, as it were, isolated from the
rest of the skull by a depression in the course of the
coronal suture; the deflection is the more distinct" since
the frontal eminences are very apparent.

No other defect characterizes the cranium, which has
not grown since the age of ten. The mouth is seemingly
dead and closed without firmness ; the alae nasi, as well
as the pale cheeks, are relaxed ; the eye dim, half-shut,
and the pupil dilated and irregular. His face has some-
what elongated in the last four years, but it has pre-

428 IDIOCY.

served the delicate, timid, and sympathetic characters of
infancy in the midst of the hardy and bony types that
were growing up about him in college. In other respects
well formed, the habit of his body is relaxation ; the
organs of speech are perfect; those of generation are
voluminous and wilted.

Louis would remain in bed or upon a seat until forced
to leave, which he would do slowly, grumblingly, and only
to seat himself again upon the nearest chair. " Walk f
What for ? Oo where ? " would he say in his happy mo-
ments ; for usually not one syllable could be gotten out
of him. Thus he did nothing, and his activity was abol-
ished. In the same way nervous sensibility had disap-
peared from all surfaces ; no irritation short of absolute
pain roused him, and the encephalic nerve-masses
appeared profoundly affected with atony, at least. No
difference was to be found in the extent and precision of
the functions of the two sides of the body. The sphinc-
ters are lax, but not powerless ; the muscles are relaxed ;
the soft blanched skin is without perfect capillary circula-
tion,. and although all movements of his age are possible
to him, yet he will perform none of them ; it takes him
more than an hour to dress, and he eats dirtily. The
sensibility of the palm of the hand and of the fingers is
alone preserved ; the smell is indifferent ; the taste
changed to disgust ; the hearing delicate, although vol-
untary attention is nearly always suspended, ; the look is
dull, with no abnormal starts or intellectual gleam*

"With the handj and more markedly the organs of
generation are the seat of a sensibility and irritability

APPENDIX. 429

kept up or excited by the solitary vice. Speech is some-
what slow, yet distinct ; besides, Louis never speaks spon-
taneously, and when he resolves to answer, there occurs
an interval between the question and the answer, during
which he makes visible efforts to break silence. It is
always necessary to force him to eat, and he takes but
little. His evacuations are voluntary ; generally he is
constipated, but at times he suffers from diarrhoea lasting
several days ; he does not slobber, never weeps, rarely
blows his nose ; his perspiration is -never noticeable, and
his sebaceous secretion has no special odor.

The attention of Louis is, so to speak, asleep, and it
requires some perseverance to ronse it. Voluntarily he
compares, judges, appreciates nothing, and seems to dread
all mental operations. To all questions, when he has
decided to answer, he replies : " Why do you ash me
that ? " And when the answer follows too clearly from
the question, he adds ; " You Tcnow very well that ITcnovo
it." But he almost always avoids answering, and never
speaks of himself. Besides, Louis does not know what
colors, shapes, calculation, time, space, and money are ;
but he can still read, and yet will not. He has no abnormal
taste for music, he likes to hide and not to destroy, and
appears to have foresight. His memory presents this
peculiarity, that he can no longer retain new thoughts or
ideas, that he has even forgotten those of locality and of
most persons, especially such as are connected with his
intellectual studies ; but if he does not know anything of
that which he has learned by induction or by deduction,
he retains all that he has learned by heartjword for word.

430 IDIOCY.

Thus after being teazed by questions which he will not
answer, he will at last, to escape them, say with an ex-
pression of childish satisfaction : " Si/r, shall I recite to
you a fable of PhoBdrus ?

" ' Formica ei Musea contendebemt acriter
Qu<B plwris esset. Musca sic ccepii prior :
Con/erre nostris tu petes te laudibus ?....'"

He will not atop his recitation unless interrupted ; but
then he is silent ; capable of repeating, yet incapable of
saying anything of himself alone.

Louis has no instincts ; neither cruel nor rebellious, he
disobeys because powerless to obey, from asthenia; in
him the spontaneity is broken. Thus he has neither
moral qualities nor defects, excepting the insensibility re-
sulting from his vice, and the dissimulation necessaiy to
hide it ; for he very well knows that it is wrong ; but
all his spontaneity is sunk in that one act towards which
all his thoughts centre ; consequently he likes to be alone ;
logical desire for solitude, which must not be confounded
with the instinctive isolation of the idiot or the maniac.

The parents of Louis are well organized ; he has two
married sisters, whose children are intelligent ; he himself
had a happy childhood, and no other cause is known of
Louis's present- condition than that which cannot be
doubted. At eight years he was a charming boy ; at ten
he had begun his Latin studies with his father, and had
been placed in the sixth class at college. What happened
there ? . . . There is among collected students a kind of
freemasonry, the object of which is known, without the

APPENDIX. 431

details being appreciated ; its victims are buried, but are
not counted, nor are they counted who leave school worn
out in body and mind, nor they who fall into imbecility,
nor they who ere long will be dement.

Louis, the gay and thoughtless child, did not resist the
fatal maelstrom. He worked hard, obtained prizes the
first year, but by that time he had become sadder, loving
Bolitudcj avoiding light. It was to 'work, he said, that
he isolated himself during his first vacations — and, truly,
he -did work — but did he only work? The succeeding
year he had still another honor ; he returned still more
gloomy than before ; he experienced, he said, laminating
pains, which seemed to pass horizontally across the occi-
pital base of the skull ; that did not prevent his working
alone, far from noise, in the dim daylight. Thi^ time the
vigilance of his parents being aroused, they saw that they
could no longer have doubts as to the cause of the changes
in the health and tastes of their child. He was watched,
which annoyed him a great deal; " it prevented his work-
vng" he said. When the academic year began, as it was
not thought that Louis was more in need of care than of
Latin, he was sent back to his place in college, but no
longer the first in his class. Severely punished by his
teacher for negligence, unpardonable in a first-class pu-
pil, he was often shut up during recreation hours and
exhausted with pensums ; he passed some days in the sick-
room without a distinct cause ; his skin was dry, his pulse
irregular, and he only returned to recitations to exhibit a <
dull intelligence. At the Easter vacation his family was
requested to keep him. He had been out of college

432 IDIOCY.

eighteen months when I saw him for the first time, just as
I have described him. I did not believe that in the pre-
sent case, educational means, properly so called, would
be efficacious. He was ordered to take very warm baths,
with cold affusions on the head ; to drink every morning
a wine-glass of tonic wine, and to eat a piece of bread ;
then he was led, or rather dragged, out to take a walk of
some two hours. When he returned, his afms ^nd legs
alone were rubbed and shampooed. When I perceived
that this exercise was too little for his acquired strength,
I ordered him besides, to saw some wood, to carry stones,
to plane boards, and when he answered, " Why is this ?
. . . Twill not, . . ." he was told, " Do it ; obey^'' etc.
After a period of resistance, which daily became less, he
would yield and obey.

Imperfectly watched hitherto (it was never strictly enough
done to suit me), I advised certain precautions, a detailed
account of which would be tedious, and among which I
shall only mention a bed which I caused to be made so that
it gave warning of the least motion on the part of the child.
He was much annoyed by this new kind of couch. In
order to complain of it, he recovered the spontaneous use
of speech which he had lost for nearly two years ; . he said
that the noise made by his head-board prevented his sleep-
ing, etc. No attention was paid to this, but I repeat it I
doubt whether he was as carefully, watched during the day
as I would have wished. However his face and limbs be-
, came plujnper, at times his eye would brighten, and even
his mouth laughed occasionally; when alone he often
laughed and smiled as if at a thought. Such moments were'

APPENDIX 433

taken advantage of to make tim speak, and at the end of
eight months he was beginning to say certain sensible
things quite willingly ; his appetite returned through the
exercise, of which however he always complained as exces-
sive ; general sensibility returned by means of the bath, the
temperature of which was gradually reduced to coolness,
and by means of the frictions and shampooing, which were
gradually extended as far as the bust, but always carefully
avoiding the glands of the neck, breast, and groins.
\ At length, the birthday of his mother being near, I
prevailed upon him to learn a compliment ; by dint of
copying them, he retained the first two sentences. But
that to which I attached the most importance, was to make
him speak, speak in order to deduce from that which I
told him a series of ideas with which he should answer
me : one would hardly believe how very difficult these
exercises were to regulate properly, how fatiguing to
direct and keep up. Concurrently with this, I showed
him colors, forms, drawings ; he knew all that I " And
why did you not speak of it ? " I asked him one day.
Louis. — " Because I did not know it any more." Seguin.
— " You knew it, since you still know it." Louis. — " That
is true, but I did not have the strength to speak ; and
besides, I was thinking about something else." Seguin. —
""What then were you thinking of?" Louis did not
answer ; I did not insist, and we continued our exercises.
These were interrupted by a voyage, the effects of which
I doubt, not were beneficial, if my directions were fol-
lowed. — {Translation as above.)

Obs. LII. Baohwa/rd Child.— In the fall of 1842,

434: IDIOCY.

Paul de Y. was brought to me. He was five years and
a half old, of a nervo-lymphatic temperament, and in the
enjoyment of fair, health.

Cranium a little wide in the bitemporal diameter;
forehead of a somewhat depressed type, without either
symmetry or notable irregularities. In its relations to the
cranium, the facies resembles that of an old man, and this
analogy is made still more striking by the external drop-
ping of the lips, which follow the sinuo8itie3 of a very
irregular dental arch. The habit of the head is slightly
inclined, that of the trunk relaxed, that of the extremities
bent, that of the hands rather finilly contracted, especially
during sleep. This child remains extended upon an
inclined chair the better part of the day ; during the rest
of the time he is active. The organs of voice are very
defective ; tongue thick, dry, seemingly transversely
fissured ; teeth growing irregularly, even under the
tongue, and of a less number than he ought to have at his
age ; palatine arch flat and low and partaking of the dry-
ness of the tongue ; hair scanty and deficient in patches ;
skin dry and covered with a minute desquamation ; the
organs of generation, the thorax, and the vertebral column
are normal ; the abdomen is rather large and hard.

Paul's general activity is at times suflBcient, but it is
quickly exhausted, and requires to be renewed by fre-
quent rest ; and he only makes use of it for games insig-
nificant even at his age. The nervous system is very
excitable as a whole, but not at any special points ; and
odors, heat, storms, augment this excitability, which mani-
fests itself by noisy, excessive gaiety, which is quickly

APPENDIX. 435

followed by tears, and then by repose. Nothing, however,
would seem to indicate organic lesions in any apparatus.
The nervous centres and the nerves of sensation, and even
those of motion, do not appear affected, although certain
movements are notably disordered ; there rather is, as I
subsequently became assured, a want of voluntary coordi-
nation, than any idiopathic pathological state : thus motor
■ and sensitive functions are equally well performed on both
sides of the body ; the muscles, though little apparent
beneath a thick areolar tissue, perform their functions
regularly, as do also the sphincters; there are no me-
chanical or spasmodic movements ; there can only be
noticed a rather high degree of general agitation. Paul
will remain willingly motionless, provided it be in a
chair ; he walks well and for a suflSciently long time, but
rather uncertainly ; with the aid of a support, he, with diffi-
culty, ascends or descends ; he runs but little, and jumps
badly ; he can properly seize an object with his hand, but
this organ hesitates to let it go, and could not throw it any
distance; he does not. attempt to dress himself, and the
only thing he eats by himself, soup, he wastes right and left.
Paul's tact.is rather dull ; his smell delicate and fond
of such odors as enervate him ; his taste is little deve-
loped and indifferent ; his hearing acute ; his look vague
and a little raised. In him, I am told, sensibility is null ;
voice harsh and hoarse ; speech without distinct articula-
tion ; appetite fair ; mastication incomplete ; digestion
long; stools pretty good; urine scanty, red, and sedi-
mentary, but passed voluntarily ; saliva normal ; sweat
limited to the hands, feet, and to the alse nasi, is habitual,

436 IDIOCY.

but only the greatest heat can make it appear on the
forehead. His sleep is nightly disturbed by spasmodic
movements, sitting up at times on his bed while still
asleep ; his pulse is small, hard, and rapid ; his respira-
tion almost always oppressed.

Paul is more attentive to words than to things ; he likes
to listen to persons talking, although he only perceives
the soands, or at most a few simple words addressed to •
him. He only compares and chooses among objects
which are necessary to him ; in all things else his facul-
ties do not seem to exist. Thus he has only a few com-
mon perceptions ; no positive notions nor ideas ; the only
knowledge he has of time are the hours for breakfast, for
the walk, or for dinner, hours which he never forgets.
He likes music, yet never sings involuntarily and never
hums. He has the memory of the location of objects
placed by himself or others, that of persons and names,
though he cannot pronounce them. He can neither read
nor write, etc. ; does not seem to lack prevision.

Paul possesses the instinct of personal preservation,
that of the preservation and arrangement of objects, but
the latter instinct wants the minutia proper to the mass
of idiots ; he is neither aggressive nor cruel, nor is he
given to anormal appetites ; not very obedient, but with-
out stubborn resistance ; he is affectionate and caressing,
grateful, gay, without vanity, heedless, trustful and much
of an imitator. Besides, he has the sentiment of right
and wrong in so far as it may relate to what he does ; he
does not lack an .active will, but what he does want is an
object of intellectual activity: — object to which common

APPENDIX. 437

education could not lead him ; and he has no more of in-
Btinctive and negative will than other children of his
age.

Far from being an idiot, although he really appears as
incapable as many idiots, Paul de T. sometimes seeks
such objects and persons as may amuse him, and that
without preference, without monomaniacal exclusion for
or against any of them.

I have been unable to obtain any details concerning
the ancestors of this child, originally from Burgundy ;
the father is an accomplished gentleman ; the mother is
an intelligent and careful housewife, who has had, and still
suffers from a supposed cancerous tumor of the right
breast ; nothing plausible can be learned of the causes of
Paul's condition. When placed in charge of this child he
suffered from no noteworthy disease or infirmity except
the cutaneous affection which has been mentioned ; his
condition had not at all itnproved from the age of three
years, at which time he began to walk, and it was the
stationary state which induced his parents to consult
me.

Ther'e could be no doubt that the physiological disor-
ders were of secondary importance ; the intellectual and
moral state alone was serious, not alarming ; no abnormal
instinct revealed the nervous disorders characteristic of
idiocy ; I had simply to deal with a backward child.

I began by inducing the family physician to prescribe
a more nutritious diet (the child having previously been
kept on milk diet), chalybeates, old and pure wine in
the morning, tepid baths of sliort duration, taken at

438 IDIOCY..

bedtime ; walks regularly taken morning and evening ;
for the rest the hygiene was suitable. I first rendered
movements, such as the walk and manual acts, more pre-
cise, then the functions of the eye ; I awaked, by partial
and varied immersions of the hand, the rather dull tact ;
I gave a taste for pictures by choosing them according to
the child's wishes. It was at first more difficult to draw
his attention to colors ; however, some brilliant vests
and cravats helped him much to distinguish tlie primary
ones. He was very fond of scrawling with a pen, which
he carried from the paper to his shirt-collar ; starting
from this, I began to drill him in regular tracings, and
soon after made him draw, upon the black-board, profiles
which he recognized ; thus he learned his letters, draw-
ing them after me ; but he did hot yet speak, although
he had the desire and tried to.

Bat excepting tna and ;pa, all articulated speech was
impossible to him, and besides he was almost voiceless.
I undertook simultaneously, though by very diflferent
exercises, to develop the voice and the articulation. The
former of these functions was solicited and sustained by
slow and prolonged sounds from the piano ; in thil exer-
cise, the mistress, after having found the key to his voice,
repeated this note with the corresponding instrumental
sound and with her own voice, rising or descending a
note or two from time to time, to vary the monotony of
the chant, and by degrees drawing out the child's voice
in unison with, and following the sounds. In the second
exercise, which does not diflfer from that exposed in the
method, the child found hi imitation the resources which

APPENDIX. 439

had been denied him by his organization to execute arti-
culatory movements.

But when he began to speak outside of the exercises,
stammering reappeared. Happily this vice was not
allowed to take root, and I eradicated it nearly at its
birth ; which plan is much preferable, notwithstanding
what has been said, to that of waiting for the period of
puberty to get rid of this evil habit. Simultaneously
with these vocal exercises, which lasted nearly one year,
Paul was learning to read, write, and cipher ; his func-
tions were becoming regular ; his acquired tastes led him
to intelligent occupations, and induced him to take part
in games which required some little attention and pa-
tience ; he liked to skim over picture-books, and he ex-
plained the subjects in his own way, that is to say, he
named the objects and figures, but without uniting them
in his mind, and without realizing the relations that the
artist had established between them. It required two
years for him to appreciate these relations, to establish
them between himself and his doll, and between it and
his Punchinello ; but he already (seven and a half years
old) spoke, if not correctly, at least intelligibly ; he drew
with precision and taste all plain figures that were traced
on the board before him ; he wrote by copying written
words, and by rendering into letters words pronounced

for him By this procedure, in spite of the

objection which I have myself pointed out, how many
operations of attention, of comparison, of judgment, of
invention even, has he not made, whereas the mere copy-
ing of a written model would h'ardly have trained hig eye

440 IDIOCT.

and his hand. For the great majority of children in this
manner copy pages, volumes, without thinking or per-
ceiving aught.

To return to Paul : he only required my assiduous care
during three years. From the age of eight he has com-
menced to learn such things as are taught to all children,
even such as I did not wish him to acquire so soon. From
that time I only saw him at long intervals ; the parents were
not always strict enough, but the governess stood by him
-•holding Latin and punishment in perspective, ready to dis-
charge all the knowledge she had upon him. Paul has
bravely endured all, and this year (1845) has entered college.
— {Translation as above.)

As circumstances did not permit us to study the English
institutions for idiotic children, we rely upon the two fol-
lowing observations, taken from the No. CCXLIX. of the
Edinburgh Review, for July, 1865, and written apparently
by a person actually engaged in the treatment at Earls-
wood, and equally competent to describe the training and
to form judgments on the subject:

Obs. LIII. — " Four years ago a boy came under the care of
the establishment belonging to this asylum, then at Essex
Hall. He was of well-proportioned frame, but with a singu-
larly formed head, and wild, sullen, and with scarcely any
speech. He was, in fact, the pupil who was six months
learning the difference between a dog's head and his tail.
If spoken to, he uttered by no means pleasant sounds;
and when corrected would run away, and hide himself, if
possible. It is not necessary to give in detail the history
of his progress, but his accomplishments at this time are

APPENDIX. 441

such as to enable him to earn his own living, and even
more, in the establishment ; while his smile is most agree-
able, and his manners very attractive — refined, indeed.
Yet even now his speech is scarcely intelligible to those
who know him well, and he has not a quality of any kind
which could enable him, without guidance, to manage even
small sums of money or the simplest economy of daily life.
Yet he is a carpenter and cabinet-maker, the workman to
whose skill is due a great deal of the neat furniture of the
house ;' and he can paint, glaze, and varnish in excellent
style. Many of the doors are made and finished by him.
He runs with the rapidity of an American Indian, fences
so as to compete with a good master, and plays the drum
in the band. More than this, he has made a model of a
man-of-war, which has been several times exhibited in Lon-
don, and accomplished his first attempt at this achievement
merely by seeing a drawing' of one on a figured handker-
chief He was told that the instant it was launched it
would fall upon its side for want of ballast and due calcu-
lation, but would not believe it till he witnessed the disaster,
to his utter dismay.

" Another effort was made, and the finish, proportion, and
general plan were now perfect. He was furnished with
• metal guns by the generosity of one of the members of the
board, and to hear him explain his ingenious methods of
proceeding, as he stood before his model, is perfectly unlike
anything else ever seen or heard, while his meaning must
be more than half guessed, from his want of words and ex-
pression. He is now making a model of the Great Eastern

■iron ship thirteen feet long. He has made all the working,
^ 28

442 IDIOCY.

drawings, and will accomplish the feat admirably. From
morning to night he is constantly employed, and when his
regular work in the carpenter's shop ceases for the use of
the house, he spends his time in these sorts of fancy works,
including a gigantic flying-kite, and in copying fine engrav-
ings. These drawings, in dark and colored chalk, are most
meritorious ; and many of them, framed and glazed by him-
self, adorn the corridor and other parts of the asylum. One
was graciously approved and accepted by the Queen, who
was kindly pleased to send the artist a present ; ahd Mr.
Sidney had the honor of showing some of them to the Prince
Consort, no common judge of art, who expressed the greatest
surprise that one so gifted was still to be kept in the- cate-
gory of idiots, or ever had been one. His Royal Highness
was particularly astonished, not only by his copies of first-
rate engravings, but by an imaginary drawing made by him
of the Siege of Sebastopol, partly from the Illustrated London
News, and partly from his own ideas. He dislikes writing,
and holds it very cheap, and like the ancient inhabitants of
certain portions of the American continent, would make his
communications pictorial. If offended and intending to
complain, he draws the incident, and makes his view of
things a,boiit the house and his requests known in the same
way. He has made a drawing of the future launch of the
great ship, himself the principal figure, and all the inmates
of the house cheering him and waving their caps. In
short, he has seemingly just missed, by defect of some facul-
ties, and the want of equilibrium in those he possesses,
being a distinguished genius. He is passionate in temper,
but relents and punishes hiinself. He set a trap for Dr.

APPENDIX, 443

Down when he offended him, but was very sorry for it.
He kicked a panel out of a door in a rage, and afterwards
refused to go to Brighton, on an excursion of pleasure, be-
cause he did not deserve it for his misconduct. He is con-
scientious, gentle, and generally wpll behaved, and is now
considered on the staff, dines with the attendants, and in
some way he fancies the establishment could scarcely go on
without him. He has a brother afflicted with the same
malady as himself in the asylum, to whom his attentions
are constant and affectionate.

" To explain the physical and physiological mysteries of
such human beings is beyond the present power of any
known science, and must puzzle the most ingenious
speculator on the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital
divisions of the human skull, as indicating idiocy or nor-
mal powers. There is no knowing what an idiot can do,
tiU tried ; and such who can be taught nothing in one
way, may learn much in another. The youth just de-
scribed, with all his cleverness, could never be made to
understand that an annual sum paid quarterly would
equal in amount the same paid weekly. Yet another
child, stupid at all other things, will make arithmetical
calculations mentally, of great extent, with perfect accu-
racy and marvellous readiness."

"Without phrenology, philosophy, or explanation of any
sort, what better proof that idiots are exactly like all of
us, incomplete beings, only more infirm ?

Among the cooks there is one noticed by Mr. Sidney
as the strangest specimen of unequal powers thg,t could be
found.

444 IDIOCY.

Obs. LIV. — A., real simpleton, utterly without judg-
ment ; he has a memory which is prodigious, and a sin-
gular tendency to make puns. When spoken to about
his kitchen duties, he said, "though I am a cooh, I hope I
shall never be a sauce-ipx." Being wonderfully versed in
history, he was requested to describe the Rye-House Plot
when busy helping to make a pudding, but he excused
himself by remarking droUy : " I am so busy with the meal-
tub plot, just now, that lha.ve no time to tell you about
the Rye-House Plot" If desired to give an account of
almost any prominent event in ancient or modern story,
he will repeat whole pages of what he has read, and there
is no stopping him. When giving the history of Talley-
rand in no complimentary terms, he was interrupted by a
high dignitary of the Church, so he .said sharply, " He was
one of the clergy, any how," and went off to his cookery
quite affronted. Besides his work in the kitchen, he is a
good shoemaker, but in all other things a palpable imbe-
cile. Hew impossible is it in the present state of our
knowledge, to account for such a human being, with a
memory of incredible power, with a capability of exer-
cising a certain handicraft, and yet without any faculty
that could guide him in the commonest path of daily life.
This pupil was called by Mr. Sidney the " historical cook ;"
and he is also alluded to by Mr. Brady, who says of him :
" He can repeat whole pages of history. We asked him
several questions, nearly all of which he answered with
marvellous accuracy. Among his replies he gave us an
account gt the Peloppnnesian War, showing that he
was intimately acquainted with its details. He mentioned

APPENDIX. 445

its duration, date, and cause ; the resources of the comba-
tants ; the gains and losses on either side ; the temporary
peace ; the renewal of the war after the Spartan success ;
and the final defeat of the Athenians by Lysander."

No need to say a word more about the subject ; such a
cook can take care of himself. Therefore, without refer-
ring more particularly to him, we would only remark that
if we appear to have forgotten the simpleton, it is because
. we consider him as an artificial and after-product of
idiocy ; jcsulting from the outgrowth of a few wild capa-
cities in the absence of systematic training. Thus idiots
and imbeciles are known to have taken their own case in
their own hands, and to have become, despite the imbe-
cility of those who laughed at them, one-sidedly useful,
canning, even talented. In fact, among them are found
some of the daring Triboulets who dared to tell the truth
to kings.

Dr. Kerlin, in the " Mind Unveiled," furnishes us with
the following case :

Obs. LV. — "Beckie, in infancy her health was con-
sidered good, except during dentition, when she had
repeated nervous twitchings. She was backward in com-
mencing to walk, but when she had once learned, was
quite active. In some respects her habits were nice.
She was particularly careful of her shoes, but would clean
them, when soiled, with a new dress or apron. Her tastes
for certain colors or styles of dress were odd. In disposi-
tion she was unsociable ; preferring solitude to society.
She preferred even to play by herself, and her amuse-
ments were as eccentric as they were original. Her

446 IDIOCY.

attachments, though few, were quite decided. She was
timid in the presence of strangers. She disliked domestic
animals, and was often destructive towards them. She
tried to utter several syllabic words, at the time that chil-
dren ordinarily talk, and never but one at a time. This
she soon discontinued entirely.

"We shall describe Beckie as she came under our
notice eighteen months ago.

" She was in a grove, alone ; and carried in her little •
clenched fingers a quantity of sticks and stones, and a
small tin cup; her form was crouched, and she moved
about among the leaves, apparently in search of some-
thing ; but on our approach she bounded away with the
grace and lightness of a startled gazelle. "We followed her,
and after much coaxing and many manoeuvres, succeeded
in getting her to approach. She seemed very slender and
nervous, and her face pallid ; the clear, transparent skin
revealing the delicate veins that coursed beneath; her
eye possessed a peculiar pensiveness — indeed sadness —
which corresponded well with the lost outlines of her
interesting face; once seen, she was long remembered;
for she seemed, with her dream-like silence in that green
retreat, more like a spiritual than a physical existence.

" On further acquaintance, we found her to be of a
violent temper, and easily excited to a manifestation of
it by any interruption to her designs or habits. During
such paroxysms she frequently threw herself on the floor,
stamping her feet with rage, and turning blue in the face ;
at other times she would bite and slap herself, and once
pinched her finger severely in the crack of a door, to

APPENDIX. 447

excite a relenting spirit in the person offended with
her.

" She had been severely reprimanded by her teacher,
and after the first storm was over, approached the latter
with all the feigns of deep contrition and repentance —
reconciliation, tinder similar circumstances, was always
effected by a kiss ; on this occasion, the preliminaries were
not valid, for in the very act of kissing, the child bit the
lady's cheek so severely, that the marks lasted several days.

" Her mischief knew no bounds ; where no form could
glide. Beck, winged with the spirit of mischief, might be
found ; a slight tip under the elbow of a stranger at tea,
has dashed the cup from his lips, and its contents upon
his satin and linen. An annual clearing of the flues has
restored rulers, scissors, collars, and all the et ceteras of
the school-room, mostly deposited there by Beckie.

" Eeoently, this innate mischievous propensity has
exhausted itself in another form. ' James ' is selected
as the victim, and a more appropriate could not be — a
huge slate-rag, pendant to his "coat-tail, is one of her
favorite exhibitions.

" Her attachment was always confined to but one indi-
vidual at the same time, and the bond was irksome enough
to the consenting party, for her affection was too tyrannical
in its demands to be comfortably supported,' while she
was disobedient as she could well be. The few child-like
amusements she had seemed distortions of simple, easy
childhood ; her arms were often loaded with two or three
geometric blocks, a long ruler, or a yard-stick— these were
her babies ; they were with her in the woods, on the la d

448 IDIOCY.

dere, in the school-room, and at the table in respective
Beats ; they were taken to bed, where they lay on each
side of her, and her soundest sleep would be awakened
if any one had the temerity to attempt their removal.

" No improvement was apparent in her Case, until she
was fully impressed with a course of tonic medicine, to
soothe and settle her excited nervous system, while it was
necessaiy to rectify her perverted moral tendencies. To
this end her solitude was interfered with ; she must join
in the dumb-bells exercise with other children ; a rag-idby '
must be substituted for her blocks and stick ; she must be
taught that first lesson in progress, which she has not yet
learned, obedience ; she must not be over-petted, and yet
not forsaken ; she must seek for association with each and
all. This plan was only partially carried out; yet her
health improved ; she became less exacting in her demands
on her favorite instructor; and she sometimes made lip
motions when asked to talk. "We extract from our register :

" December 3d. — The seal which has been set for a long
time on articulate speech is broken ; and to the surprise
and joy of the household she is now a talking child.
*I did it — mamma — papa — baby — apple — ^you,' are the
words to which she has given utterance ; thus answering
our anticipations, and giving assurance that it is but the
beginning of greater things. She is too much excited.

" Beckie, after preparing for bed, in taking a glass of
water, mischievously poured some on the floor ; this was
a habit of hers to excite a mock scolding which she en-
joyed. She was immediately called to, in a stern, loud
voice : ' Who did that ? ' The little thing danced

APPENDIX. 449

about in high glee and suddenly exclaimed : ' I did it.'
Excitement was now heaped on, and the frenzied child
repeated the additional worde— indistinctly, it is true, but
they were words. Mark what follows in five short days.

" December 17.— Since 8th instant, has been quite sick
with irritative fever.

" A few days of protracted excitement and the child
had lapsed into her helpless silence ; no enthusiasm can
awaken that little heart to speech ; her face was pallid ;
her breath fetid, she was 'out of tune,' after striking
but a few notes, for a rude hand had swept over strings
too tensely drawn. A slow fever prostrated her ; and for
many days after she lay on her couch, gentle and quiet,
not sick — not well; but her animal forces completely
exhausted. About this time, two circumstances occurred
which had a very happy bearing on Beckie's future. Dr.
Garrish wisely forbade any inmate to fret the child for
words, under the conviction that language would come
naturally, when she was physically and mentally pre-
pared for it.

"Beckie, too, had an atttendant, and between them a
reciprocal affection sprang up. The latter possessed the
rare quality of persons in this station, of not desiring,
and concerting, to monopolize the attachment of her little
charge. She compelled her to look to many sources for
her entertainment, and never became herself the victim
of the child^s tyrannical habits. Under such favorable
auspices, she improved ; she was no longer restless and
inattentive in the school-room ; a new intelligence seemed
to dawn from those pensive eyes, and when our phonetic

450 IDIOCY.

exercises were engaged in, she indicated her willingness
to join them by twisting her mouth in all possible direc-
tions, and modelling her lips with her fingers.

" One day, about this period, she accidentally spoke
two words. In a crowded dining-room she was interfered
with, and called out in a half-audible voice, ' Go away !'
But immediately she ran into a corner, hid her face, and
held her lips fast together with her hand, as if showing
an instinctive dread of the excitement which the forcing
plan had engendered. It was a natural sign that true
wisdom could not disregard in the management of such
cases.-

"We return to our register. January 24. — For five
evenings past, Beckie has indulged in a free use of her
organs of speech ; this is only after retiring, and when
under the impression of being alone. What is most
gratifying, is to find that her intellectual powers are not
so dormant as was supposed by some. Her words are
\he representations of intelligent thought. Her language
is addressed to her doll ; its nose, eyes, etc., are pointed

at and named with some lisping She sings, with

some errors, ' The Lakes,' (a school-room exercise) ; her
pronunciation of these is poor, but sufficiently distinct to
be understood by any one familiar with our singing exer-
cises. She makes attempts to recite our addition-tables,
and pronounces perfectly many of the figures. ' Baby !
Dannie had a fit ! Poor Dannie ! ' are words frequently
uttered, with immoderate glee at the circumstance. She
sings with a clear, mellow voice many of our school-room
songs, and with a precision of note that astonishes, us.

APPENDIX. 451

Her faTorites are the ' Geogi-aphy Tune,' ' Old Dog Tray,'
'I think when I read that sweet story of old,' « My own
Mamma, my dear Mamma,' and 'Sweet Lillie.' Her
want of coordination in the movements of the tongue,
lips, and laryngeal muscles,' prevents clear articulation ;
as confidence, and her own powers by exercise are devel-
oped, she will be much improved by phonetics, which
school-room exercise she is evidently fond of, indulging,
as she now does, in the vocalization of many sounds for
the benefit of her mute rag-baby.

"The intelligence of a darling child having been thus
wonderfully restored to speech, must have thrilled the
heart of fond parents and numerous friends ; and a few
months after, an aged grandmother from her distant
home visited the child, to catch from her own lips the
liberated music. Beokie was happy ; she recognized her
venerable relative, submitted to her tender caresses, Jmt
would not talk. Only that morning had her .cheerful
voice been heard by all the house — now, she was mute
again. The grandmother turned to leave, sorrowing that
she could not hear, with her own ears, those cheerful
sounds. When only a short distance down the avenue.
Beck, in the most provoking manner, ran up to one of us,
and said,' in a whisper, ' Grand-mom gone home— see
baby.' Much of the ' old leaven' remained in her com-
position.

"September 23d. — Has returned from a protracted visit,
home; Parts with her father with regret; and seeks those
now whom she never sought before, to point where ' Papa'
has disappeared ; when asked what she meanSj with a face

452 IDIOCY.

full of sorrow she says : " Gone home to baby William.'
Juliet, her good nurse, is gone also ; and a hearty cry indi-
cates the genuineness of her childish sorrpw, and draws her
still closer to us, as her present grief is a natural one — the
first she ever exhibited. Her habitual gayety is soon
restored, and she goes through our halls, making-them echo
with her cheerful songs. She seldom talks aloud; she
whispers very loudly, so as to be heard across a room ; but
her singing is an annoyance and disturbance during, school
hours. She has much to say about her little baby being
very sick, because a naughty girl whipped it. On one oc-
casion she met one of us at the door, and with the most
earnest expression of concern, she said in a hurried voice,
' Doctor, do come up and see baby — he's got the fever ! '
She was asked what she had done for it. Her answer was
derived from her own ample experience — ' Give it a mustard
foot-bath.'

"Her disposition- is much improved; her barrier to
speech would seem to have been an irritation to her, which
being now removed, allows her little heart to leap with
childish exuberance. Her light step is lighter now ; her
pensive eye is singularly bright, and dances with the strong
mental working, to which she gives free expression. To
reproof, she is more gentle and obedient, answering with a
quiet smile ; when before, she gave a pitiful contortion of
countenance.

" What is our little prodigy doing now ? Four months
ago she was placed at her alphabet, having previously been
well practised in form and color ; she is now reading mono-
syllabic words, pronouncing them aloud and correctly.

APPENDIX. 453

Before visitors, she speaks in whispering tones, generally ;
if a baby is in the company she will talk in ordinary pitch.
Placed before an outline map of the United States, she
seems tolerably well acquainted with most of our geogra-
phical features, answering in a clear, audible voice. She
counts fifteen understandingly, makes straight lines on the
slate, threads beads with reference to color, and desires
little forms for them when her string is completed. Mental-
ly, she is a progressing child of four years, instead of eight."
The writer of this notice, now Superintendent of the
Pennsylvania Training-School, did not present Beckie as
an idiot. It results from his description of her that she
was like ordinary children, till a diseased condition of the
nervous system, of undetermined character, stopped all
progress, at the same. , time obliterating incipient speech.
This would class her among imbeciles, if some subsequent
symptoms did not seem to indicate a vague tendency to
moral insanity.

The following case, like the three preceding ones, would
be more valuable for our instruction, but not more com-
mendable for those who had charge of it, if its primordial
characters were better delineated. We take it, partly
from the report of the institution of Barre, Mass., and
partly from private correspondence.

Obs. LYL— " Case No. 6.— A youth, set. 17, good physi-
cal development, well-formed head, and pleasant counte-
nance. After many fruitless attempts, it was decided that
he could gain no knowledge from books b'eyond his letters.
There was no desire to learn nor ambition to be anything ;
no habits of application, no moral power to restrain him.

454: IDIOCY.

from evil, very little strength of will. His conversation
showed some proper ideas of common things ; but his judg-
ment, understanding, and reflection were sadly behind his
years ; and it was the opinion of his friends that he would
never be able to take care of himself without guardianship.

" Three years of discipline have shown that he is fully
capable of gaining an ordinary education. Though his
advanced age has rendered the undertaking more difficult
for both himself and teacher; he has made more rapid
progress than could have been expected in general intelli-
gence and information, enlarged power of reflection,
enjoyment of reading, recognition of moral principles,
knowledge of biblical tracts, genuine practicality, power
of imitation, skill to construct and make himself generally
useful. He feels more reliance uponjiimself, has increased
self-esteem, wishes to be well thought of, to be a man
capable of earning his living. He will doubtless be com-
petent for sustaining creditably all the sdcial relations of
life in a few years."

"We are indebted to. Mrs Brown, the wife of the super-
intendent, and herself one of the most competent persons
engaged in the practical treatment of idiots, for the sequel
of the history of this interesting young man :

" Baeeb, January 22, 1866.
" The person described above remained in our school
six years, devoting a part of each year- to manual labor on
the farm, in the*8table or shop ; learning in each depart-
ment to make himself useful. At the end of that period
he had acquired a good common education, manly inde-

APPENDIX, 455

ppndence, and a good moral character. For a year he
was employed as attendant at the institution for a class of
six boys, discharging his duties with diligence and fidelity.
When the war broke out (1861) he entered the navy as
gunner's mate on board the Ossipee / was afterwards trans-
ferred to the Ouniberlcmd and thence to the Brooklyn, on
which he served during the remainder of the war. From
letters recently received from him we learn that he is
married, and is now mate of a merchant-ship plying be-
tween Boston and Liverpool. I do not hesitate to say
that this worthy, useful man would have been wholly lost
to society, or worse, made the -dupe or instrument of
villainy, had he not enjoyed the beneficial effects of our
peculiar mode of education."

Our last sketches will be written in memoriam of those
who have passed from idiocy to heroism.

Among the inmates of the American schools for idiots,
several, whose primary condition is not accurately record-
ed, but whose idiocy, more or less profound, or superficial
idiocy, is beyond cavil, enlisted to defend the Eepublic.

Obs. LYII. T. p., formerly from the Penn. Training-
School, and apprenticed to the shoemaking business,
entered the army, performed good service as a soldier,
was captured in General Grant's move through the Wil-
derness, and died at the Andersonville prison-pens.

From the K Y. State Institution, Charles Piper enlisted
the day he was 21 years of age, of his own impulse, thus
asserting his claim to manliness. Lorenzo Scott, incapa-
ble of education in other schools, had learned in that of

456 IDIOCY.

Syracuse to speak, read, and write well ; had acquired
habits of industry, and such capacity for labor, that he
not only was very useful in farming operations, but in
the nicer labors connected with the garden ; where in
1862, before leaving the asylum, he took almost the sole
care of the grape-vines. He too enlisted, moved by an
intelligent patriotism. Both Piper and Scott belong
already to the history and poetry of our time. After six
months' duties, Charles was smitten by typhoid fever,
and wanted to go home. Home for him was the asylum.
At its doors he was found dying, and all the tender nurs-
ing he received could- only revive him for a few days.
Lorenzo served for two years ; at Gettysburg, where his
bravery was acknowledged by his officers, and in the
battle of the Wilderness, where he was severely wounded ;
on that occasion he is reported to have ran away from
the hospital to join his comrades in the Army of the
James. And lastly, transferred to the Shenandoah Yal-
ley, Jie was fatally wounded at Fisher's Hill, and now
sleeps at Winchester. Before his death, he expressed in
good writing his will that everything belonging to him,
and particularly his money, should be remitted to Charjey,
the son of the Superintendent of the Institution where he
had been educated. But relatives who had never pre-
viously inquired for him, inquired for his money and
divided it among themselves, unable to sign their receipts
otherwise than with " their mark."

By their life and death, these once abandoned children,
reclaimed to society-life by science and practical Christi-
anity, showed that the institution for idiots can already

APPENDIX. 457

develop the noblest sentiments of man, Friendship, Grati-
tude, love of Home, and Devotion to one's Country.
Where is the artist who will paint for the asylum of Syra-
cuse the starting of the two volunteers and the dying
return of Piper home? Those pictures would be as
touching and appropriate there as is the masterpiece of
Sir Benjamin West in the Pennsylvania Hospital for the
Insane.

It would be easy to present more of these observations,
since we have kindly received more of them from the
Superintendents of the schools of New York, Pennsylva-
nia, Kentucky, and Barre, Mass., or more are to be found
in periodicals. But they would not offer themselves
naturally as illustrations of some points of doctrine of the
present book, as those here selected are intended to do
closely ; the latter are numerous enough to represent
idiocy in its most important aspects ; and incomplete
enough, particularly oiir own, to make them stand like a
stimulus for the friends of idiots to do better. Peogebss
is in proportion to the thoroughness of dbservat/ion.

29